Meta investors, Zuckerberg reach settlement to end $8 billion trial over Facebook privacy litigation
The parties did not disclose details of the settlement and defense lawyers did not address the judge, Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery. 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 Thursday.
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 $5 billion in 2019 after finding that it failed to comply with a 2012 agreement with the regulator to protect users' data.
Zuckerberg was expected to take the stand on Monday and Sandberg on Wednesday. The trial was scheduled to run through the end of next week.
The shareholders wanted the 11 defendants to use their personal wealth to reimburse the company. The defendants denied the allegations, which they called "extreme claims."
Facebook changed its name to Meta in 2021. The company is not a defendant.
The case was also expected to include testimony from former Facebook board members Peter Thiel, Palantir Technologies co-founder, and 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 Zuckerberg and former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl 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 U.S. presidential campaign in 2016. Those revelations led to the FTC fine, which was a record at the time.
On Wednesday, 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.
Jeffrey Zients, a former board member, testified on Wednesday that the company did not agree to the FTC fine to spare Zuckerberg legal liability, as shareholders allege.
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