Meta investors, Zuckerberg agree to end $8 billion trial over Facebook privacy litigation

NEW YORK, July 18: Mark Zuckerberg, businessman and chairman of Meta Platforms, and current as well as former directors and officers of the company have agreed to settle claims seeking US$ 8 billion for the damage they allegedly caused to the company by allowing repeated violations of Facebook users’ privacy during Donald Trump’s US presidential campaign in 2016.
This information was shared by a lawyer for the shareholders to Judge Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery yesterday, without disclosing details of the settlement.
Then, McCormick adjourned the trial just as it was to enter its second day.
The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Sam Closic, said the agreement just came together quickly, reported CNN from a news story by Reuters.
Billionaire venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who is a defendant in the trial and a Meta director, was scheduled to testify yesterday.
Shareholders of Meta sued Zuckerberg, Andreessen and other former company officials, including former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, in hopes of holding them liable for billions of dollars in fines and legal costs the company paid in recent years.
The Federal Trade Commission fined Facebook US$ 5 billion in 2019 over its failure to comply with a 2012 agreement with the regulator to protect users’ data.
The shareholders wanted the 11 defendants to use their personal wealth to reimburse the company, but the defendants denied the allegations, calling them as “extreme claims”.
As Facebook changed its name to Meta in 2021, the company was not a defendant.
The case followed revelations that data from millions of Facebook users was accessed by Cambridge Analytica, a now-defunct political consulting firm that worked for Donald Trump’s successful US presidential campaign in 2016. Those revelations led to the FTC fine.
(UNI)

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