Visa must face claims that it profited from child pornography by processing payments for the parent company of Pornhub, a decision that Visa says raises questions about the liability payments firms could shoulder as they handle billions of transactions.
U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney in California denied parts of Visa’s motion to be dismissed from claims brought by a woman who is suing both the payments giant and MindGeek — the parent company of Pornhub — over a sexually explicit video taken of her when she was 13.
"It is simple,” Carney said in his ruling late Friday. "Visa made the decision to continue to recognize MindGeek as a merchant, despite its alleged knowledge that MindGeek monetized child porn. MindGeek made the decision to continue monetizing child porn, and there are enough facts pled to suggest that the latter decision depended on the former.”