Hacked dating site ,Ashley Madison agrees to pay an $11.2m (£8.57m) settlement to US-based users of the site.

In July 2016 it was also claimed company used a ‘fembot army’ to create the impression of widespread female membership. Photograph: Lee Jin-man/AP

The parent company of hacked extramarital dating site Ashley Madison has agreed to pay an $11.2m (£8.57m) settlement to US-based users of the site, ending a two-year court battle.

Ruby Life Inc agreed to pay the settlement following a number of class-action lawsuits “alleging inadequate data security practices and misrepresentations regarding Ashley Madison”. It will pay for, among other things, “payments to settlement class members who submit valid claims for alleged losses resulting from the data breach and alleged misrepresentations as described further in the proposed settlement agreement”.

In a statement, Ruby Life Inc said that it denies any wrongdoing, and reiterated that “merely because a person’s name or other information appears to have been released in the data breach does not mean that person actually was a member of Ashley Madison”.

The plaintiffs, a collection of three separate class-action lawsuits consolidated together, alleged that the company “misrepresented that they had taken reasonable steps to ensure AshleyMadison.com was secure and that the data breach resulted in the public release of certain personal information contained in AshleyMadison.com accounts and included account information of some users who had paid a fee to delete their information from the AshleyMadison.com website”.

Ruby Life inc, formerly known as Avid Life Media, has new leadership following the departure of the executive team in April 2016. In July last year, it confirmed it was under FTC investigation for an unrelated issue, brought to light only as a result of the breach: the claim that the company used a “fembot army” to create the impression of widespread female membership.