Judge Dismisses Claims Against OnlyFans in Blacklisting Case

SAN FRANCISCO—A federal district judge in northern California on Monday dismissed claims brought against the parent company of OnlyFans by adult performers alleging a conspiracy to bribe senior executives at Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms.  AVN reported that an initial lawsuit was filed against OnlyFans and Meta Platforms by board members of the Adult Performance Artists Guild accusing both of efforts to commit anti-competitive interventions against sites that directly compete with OnlyFans. Counsel for the plaintiffs submitted filings citing claims that senior executives for Meta based in London received payment for manipulating and blacklisting OnlyFans competitors from advertising across the internet. The conspiracy was premised on evidence that the plaintiffs later acknowledged did not directly support their claims of a conspiracy of bribery, for which they proceeded to file a disavowal. Counsel for Meta, as AVN reported last week, was livid. The lawyers for Mark Zuckerberg's social media giant petitioned federal district judge William Alsup to dismiss and sanction the lawsuit against them and the parent firm of OnlyFans, the London-based Fenix International Limited. The latter also filed motions to dismiss the case and sanction the plaintiffs. Alsup appears to have granted Fenix's motion to dismiss, citing that the adult performers and their legal counsel "utterly failed" to furnish a viable case.  "With jurisdictional discovery in the past, plaintiffs remain unable to articulate what activity or occurrence of the Fenix defendants in the alleged scheme took place in California. In fact, plaintiffs have stepped backwards and withdrawn their bribery allegations altogether. At this point, there are no factual averments tying any conduct by Fenix defendants to California," Alsup stated in a 13-page order seen by AVN. Further review of the order reveals that Meta Platforms is still named a defendant and no sanctions were ordered against the plaintiffs as requested by both parties in earlier filings with the court. It is hard to tell at this point whether Alsup will order the case in its entirety finally dismissed or if it will proceed with just Meta named. The case is before Alsup at the San Francisco division of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.