Meta investors, Zuckerberg reach settlement to end $10 billion trial over Facebook privacy litigation

Straits Times

a day ago

The shareholders wanted the 11 defendants to use their personal wealth to reimburse the company.
WILMINGTON, Delaware - Mark Zuckerberg and current and former directors and officers of Meta Platforms agreed on July 17 to settle claims seeking US$8 billion (S$10 billion) for the damage they allegedly caused the company by allowing repeated violations of Facebook users' privacy, a lawyer for the shareholders told a Delaware judge on July 17.
The parties did not disclose details of the settlement and defense lawyers did not address judge Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery. Ms McCormick adjourned the trial just as it was to enter its second day and she congratulated the parties.
The plaintiffs' lawyer Sam Closic said the agreement just came together quickly.
Billionaire venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who is a defendant in the trial and a Meta director, was scheduled to testify on July 17.
Shareholders of Meta sued Mr Zuckerberg, Mr 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 after finding that it failed 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.
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The defendants denied the allegations, which they called 'extreme claims.' Facebook changed its name to Meta in 2021. The company was not a defendant.
The company declined to comment. A lawyer for the defendants did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
'This settlement may bring relief to the parties involved, but it's a missed opportunity for public accountability,' said Mr Jason Kint, the head of Digital Content Next, a trade group for content providers.
Mr Zuckerberg was expected to take the stand on July 21 and Ms Sandberg on July 16. The trial was scheduled to run through the end of next week.
The case was also expected to include testimony from former Facebook board members Mr Peter Thiel, Palantir Technologies co-founder, and Mr Reed Hastings, co-founder of Netflix .
Meta investors alleged in the lawsuit that former and current board members completely failed to oversee the company's compliance with the 2012 FTC agreement and claim that Mr Zuckerberg and Ms Sandberg knowingly ran Facebook as an illegal data harvesting operation. 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, which was a record at the time.
On July 16, an expert witness for the plaintiffs testified about what he called 'gaps and weaknesses' in Facebook's privacy policies but would not say if the company violated the 2012 agreement that Facebook reached with the FTC.
Mr Jeffrey Zients, a former board member, testified on July 16 that the company did not agree to the FTC fine to spare Mr Zuckerberg legal liability, as shareholders allege.
On its website, the company has said it has invested billions of dollars into protecting user privacy since 2019.
The trial would have been a rare opportunity for Meta investors to see Mr Zuckerberg answer probing questions under oath. In 2017, Mr Zuckerberg was expected to testify at a trial involving a lawsuit by company investors opposed to his plan to issue a special class of Facebook stock that would have extended his control over that company. That case also settled before he took the stand.
'Facebook has successfully remade the 'Cambridge Analytica' scandal about a few bad actors rather than an unraveling of its entire business model of surveillance capitalism and the reciprocal, unbridled sharing of personal data,' Mr Kint said. 'That reckoning is now left unresolved.' REUTERS