Dublin accountancy firm cuts ties to firms owned by Pornhub operator

Prior to the controversy, there were more than 100 million daily visits to Pornhub and more than 3.6bn visits a year.

Grant Thornton has resigned as auditors 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 resign as auditors to MG Billing Ltd and three other Dublin Mindgeek-owned companies follows allegations of unlawful content on the Pornhub website in December.

Pornhub denied the allegations and less than a week later, it suspended all content uploaded by unverified users.

Asked about Grant Thornton's decision to resign as auditors to Mindgeek firms here, a spokeswoman for Grant Thornton here said:

In light of the serious nature of recent developments, Grant Thornton Ireland have disengaged with the aforementioned client.” 

She declined to comment any further.

MG Billing Ltd generated revenues here of $1.3bn (€1.07bn) 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 controversy, there were more than 100 million daily visits to Pornhub and more than 3.6bn visits a year.

Since 2012, Grant Thornton had provided audit services to a number of Mindgeek companies and also allowed the Pornhub owner to use Grant Thornton’s office address as its registered address here.

As part of the move to disengage from Mindgeek, Grant Thornton no longer allows the Mindgeek firms to use the Grant Thornton office address and the new address for the Mindgeek firms is one on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay in Dublin.

The move by Grant Thornton follows credit card firms, Visa and Mastercard moving in December to block their customers from using their credit cards to make purchases on the Pornhub website.

The chief executive of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre, Noeline Blackwell, welcomed the move.

She said Pornhub’s actions in taking down unverified content shows that even they weren’t happy with how the website was operated.

Ms Blackwell said the move by Grant Thornton “is what you would expect of a company that adheres to certain values and has policies concerning social corporate responsibility so it is welcome”.

She added: “It is in the name, it is not even hidden – Pornhub. Within pornography, there are issues around the exploitation of people and those questions will have to be asked by those people who may decide to carry out that audit work in the future.” 

In December, Pornhub strenuously denied the allegations of unlawful content and announced steps to protect against images of abuse and nonconsensual activity, including a ban on unverified users uploading material.