BUAITEOIRÍ NA SEACHTAINE
Albain
Fuair siad an lámh in uachtar ar Shasana in Twickenham den chéad uair le 38 bliain i gComórtas na Sé Náisiún – ag tabhairt leo Corn Calcúta, corn a bhronntar gach bliain ar an fhoireann a bhaineann an cluiche seo.
GRANT Thornton has resigned as auditor to four Dublin based companies owned by Mindgeek, the operator of the world’s most-visited pornographic website, Pornhub.
The move by Grant Thornton Ireland to quit as auditors to MG Billing Ltd and three other Dublin Mindgeek owned companies follows allegations that illegal content had been uploaded to the website, the 10th most trafficked in the world.Pornhub denied the allegations and less than a week later, it suspended all content uploaded by unverified users onto its website.
“In light of the serious nature of recent developments, Grant Thornton Ireland have disengaged with the aforementioned client,” a spokeswoman for the auditor said.
“Due to client confidentiality we are unable to comment on the specific nature or mandate of any client engagements.”
Records show that Grant Thornton resigned as auditors to the four Mindgeek companies on January 13, with confirmation of the filed documents only becoming available in recent days.
MG Billing Ltd generated revenues here of $1.3bn (€1.1bn) between 2012 and 2018.
The Dublin-based company collects subscriptions from premium users for the Mindgeek global porn empire and revenues for 2018 totalled $220.9m – or a weekly average of $4.2m.
Prior to the emergence of complaints over the website’s content, it saw over 100 million daily visits and over 3.6bn visits per year.
Grant Thornton has also resigned as auditors to three other Mindgeek companies, Nutaku Publishing Ltd, Mirmay Ltd and Liquidum Ltd.
The bulk of Mindgeek’s 1,800 employees are based in Montreal and the company is headquartered in Luxembourg. The chief executive of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, Noeline Blackwell welcomed the move by Grant Thornton.
“I welcome Grant Thornton’s recognition that there were questions to be asked about the Pornhub company,” Ms
Blackwell said.
She described the move by Grant Thornton as “what you would expect of a company that adheres to certain values and has policies concerning social corporate responsibility, so it is welcome”.
Mindgeek executives have been grilled recently in the
Canadian parliament about why it took so long to remove the unlawful material. Grant Thornton’s decision came after others had already moved against the pornographic website.
Payment giants Mastercard and Visa have suspended payments on Pornhub.