In a closely watched case surrounding allegations of sex trafficking and child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on Pornhub, U.S. District Judge Wesley Hsu tentatively ruled on Thursday to dismiss claims against Visa Inc., finding that the payment processing giant could not be held liable for transactions related to illegal content hosted on the platform.

The lawsuits, brought by a group of 15 women, most proceeding anonymously, accuse MindGeek (now rebranded as Aylo after its acquisition by Ethical Capital Partners) of profiting from sexually explicit videos uploaded without consent, including material depicting minors. The most prominent plaintiff, Serena Fleites, was featured in the widely publicized 2020 New York Times article “The Children of Pornhub” by Nicholas Kristof, which sparked global outrage.

Judge Hsu likened Visa’s role in processing payments to that of a utility company providing electricity, stating that Visa’s routine commercial activity did not meet the threshold for liability under federal sex trafficking statutes.

“Holding the payment processor liable would be akin to dragging an electric utility into court for providing power to run the website’s servers,” Hsu said during the hearing.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued that Visa became complicit after the 2020 exposé revealed the extent of CSAM on Pornhub, noting that Visa pressured the platform to remove millions of videos in response. They insisted that discovery into Visa’s internal knowledge and actions was necessary. However, Hsu remained inclined to dismiss Visa from the litigation at this stage.

In a separate but related ruling, Judge Hsu signaled he would dismiss claims against former MindGeek executives Bernd Bergmair, Feras Antoon, and David Tassillo, along with the company’s Luxembourg-based holding firm, due to a lack of personal jurisdiction.

Attorney Michael Bowe, representing the plaintiffs, strongly objected, arguing that MindGeek’s complex corporate structure was a deliberate sham designed to shield individual executives from accountability.

“Those three people who ran the company can’t just walk away because of a complete fiction maintained by a handful of accountants and lawyers,” Bowe asserted.

The court must ultimately decide whether dismissing these foreign defendants would perpetuate a fraud against the plaintiffs by making meaningful recovery impossible.

While Visa and former owners may escape liability, MindGeek itself remains a primary defendant. In a significant setback for the company, Judge Hsu earlier rejected MindGeek’s argument for immunity under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which generally shields online platforms from responsibility for user-uploaded content.

The judge emphasized that the plaintiffs allege direct misconduct by Pornhub’s moderators, including assisting users in posting CSAM and facilitating its discovery by others — actions that go beyond passive hosting.

“It is not intended to protect MindGeek from its own malfeasance,” Hsu said of Section 230 protections. “That is what is alleged here.”

The tentative rulings are not final and remain subject to formal orders. However, Thursday’s developments offer a preliminary roadmap for how the sprawling litigation could unfold.

MindGeek, rebranded as Aylo in 2023 after its acquisition by Ethical Capital Partners, continues to face serious allegations tied to its former operations between 2013 and 2023.