Zuckerberg and Meta officers settle claim they lost company billions by violating privacy laws
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 Sheryl Sandberg, the former chief operating officer, 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 (FTC) fined Facebook $5bn 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. 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 Jason Kint, the head of Digital Content Next, a trade group for content providers.
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 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 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 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.
Sign up to TechScape
A weekly dive in to how technology is shaping our lives
after newsletter promotion
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.
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 Zuckerberg answer probing questions under oath. In 2017, 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,' Kint said. 'That reckoning is now left unresolved.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
7 minutes ago
- Daily Mail
Iconic supermarket set to close stores in two states: Full list of locations
Homeland has become the latest grocer to announce widespread closures, confirming it will shutter several underperforming locations this summer. The company says four stores in Oklahoma — operating as Homeland, United Supermarkets, and Discount Foods banners — will close by August 16. A Piggly Wiggly in Gordon, Georgia — also run by Homeland — is also set to shut down. Christin King, director of marketing and public relations for Homeland, said the Oklahoma closures were based on 'financial performance', 'It is very unfortunate that we had to make these tough decisions, but our goal is doing the best thing for our company and our employee owners,' King told The Oklahoman. 'By closing these stores, we are able to focus on the greatest opportunities that strengthen other communities, grow communities and to really strengthen our organization by focusing resources in those areas.' These supermarkets are some of the forecast 15,000 store closures that will occur this year following inflation, tariffs and the retail apocalypse's turn for the worse. Homeland traces its roots back to a United Supermarket founded in Sayre, Oklahoma in 1916. The parent company of Homeland, Homeland Acquisition Corp. Inc., was originally linked to the Safeway grocery store chain. It officially adopted the Homeland name for its stores after becoming an independent company in 1987. The company hit a bump in the road in 2002 when it filed for bankruptcy and was acquired by Associated Wholesale Grocers. The Kansas-based firm was credited for reviving the chains owned by Homeland. While at its prime, Associate Wholesale Grocers opted to sell Homeland Acquisition Corp. Inc. to employees through an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) in 2011. The company has been 100 percent employee-owned since 2012, and currently operates around 80 stores in Georgia, Oklahoma, and Texas. Homeland and Associate Wholesale Grocers' business deals may have been what Albertsons and Kroger hoped would happen when planning to merge their stores. However the merger was a bust, and Kroger has been busy shuttering over 60 underperforming stores since shutting down its shipping services. However, some chains have continued to thrive and expand. Aldi, the fastest-growing supermarket, is opening more than 225 US locations this year, part of the 800 locations the chain plans to operate by the end of 2028. Trader Joe's fans were excited this year to discover the company planned to open a dozen stores across 10 states. That number has since moved up to more than 30. Wegmans joined in by announcing its plans to open four new stores after receiving 'thousands of requests' from customers. Other brands that are set to open stores this year include Walmart and the discount retailer Five Below.
The Independent
9 minutes ago
- The Independent
Relatives, authorities ask for public's help with investigation of Ole Miss player's fatal shooting
Authorities on Monday asked for members of the public to provide surveillance footage and details from eyewitnesses as they investigate the fatal shooting of an Ole Miss freshman football player in a Memphis neighborhood after a pool party. Corey Adams, an 18-year-old defensive lineman from New Orleans, was found with a gunshot wound inside a vehicle at an intersection in the Memphis suburb of Cordova on Saturday night, said Anthony Buckner, chief deputy of the Shelby County Sheriff's Office. Adams died at the location of the shooting. Four other men who suffered gunshot wounds that were not life-threatening arrived at nearby hospitals in personal vehicles. Three of them had been released from the hospital as of Monday afternoon, Buckner said. The shooting happened after a pool party attended by about 100 people, including Adams, Buckner said during a news conference. About 40 rifle and pistol casings were found at the shooting scene. No arrests have been made. Buckner asked members of the public who may have information useful to investigators, including surveillance footage from video cameras at neighbors' homes, to come forward. 'We have far more questions right now than we have answers,' Buckner said. 'We know people saw something or heard something.' Adams, who played at Edna Carr High School in New Orleans, is listed on the Ole Miss football website as a 6-foot-4-inch, 235-pound defensive end. He had been one of the top defensive lineman recruits in the country. Adams' mother, who spoke at the news conference but declined to be named for fear of retribution, said Adams was a loving son and brother who had hopes of playing in the NFL. He had time off from practice and went to Memphis to enjoy himself, she said. Memphis is about 85 miles (135 kilometers) north of Oxford, Mississippi, where Ole Miss is located. The Edna Karr Cougars said in a Facebook post that 'words can't describe this type of pain.' 'Corey Adams was more than a football player! He was a friend, brother, son, student, and all around great young man,' the team stated. 'We never question God but this is one we just don't understand.' ___
The Independent
9 minutes ago
- The Independent
Trump's Treasury Secretary suggests August 1 trade deal deadline doesn't matter one day after Commerce Secretary calls it a ‘hard deadline'
The Trump administration may be taking a flexible approach to what it previously described as a 'hard deadline' of long-promised tariffs taking effect on August 1. 'The important thing here is the quality of the deal, not the timing of the deals,' Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC on Monday, arguing the president's tariff threats had created 'maximum leverage as only he can do' for countries to swiftly reach trade deals with the U.S. 'Our trading partners were told that the rates could boomerang back toward the April 2nd levels,' he added. 'We can continue talking then. But again, we're proceeding apace with the negotiations, but we're not going to rush for the sake of doing deals.' Other Trump officials have described the August 1 deadline, when U.S. trading partners could face up to 40 percent tariffs, as a firmer cutoff point. 'That's a hard deadline, so on August 1, the new tariff rates will come in,' Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told CBS News on Sunday. 'Nothing stops countries from talking to us after August 1, but they're going to start paying the tariffs on August 1.' The president, for his part, has called the deadline " firm but not 100 percent firm.' Throughout July, the Trump administration has written letters to foreign leaders warning of the coming tariffs, expected to include a 35 percent tariff rate against Canada, a major U.S. trading partner, and a 30 percent rate for the European Union and Mexico. Since being unveiled in April, Trump's 'Liberation Day' tariff agenda has been repeatedly delayed, and the administration has conceded it won't achieve its original promise of 90 trade deals in 90 days. 'There's 200 countries,'' the president said earlier this month. 'You can't talk to all of them.'' The president's hesitancy to fully implement the tariffs has prompted critics of the president to deem the tariff agenda the 'TACO' plan, for 'Trump always chickens out.' The markets ' shrugged' off Trump's move to push back the tariffs to August, Carolyn Kissane, a professor at NYU's School of Professional Studies Center for Global Affairs, told The Independent earlier this month, compared to the initial market plunge when the tariffs were first revealed. 'The pattern is familiar: dramatic declarations, walk-backs, and renewed threats. It's eroded his credibility and resembles the boy who cried wolf,' Kissane added. 'He believes this tactic gives him a unique leverage to negotiate, but it also weakens the threats.'
