Facebook Twins Seek New Law Suit

The Winkelvoss twins began laying the groundwork for a fresh law suit against Facebook yesterday,  just one day after dropping their appeal over a 2008 £42m cash and stock settlement with the social networking giant.

The twins and a business partner Divya Narenda claim Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook from them and had been attempting to release themselves from a 2008 settlement on the grounds that they were misled by Facebook over the stock’s value.

This was blocked by judges but now the trio has filed a status report to the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts stating they intend to move for discovery in a claim that Facebook “intentionally or inadvertently suppressed evidence” during 2008 settlement proceedings.

New points of law

The claim in Massachusetts relates to a new point of law and asserts that Facebook should have disclosed instant messages from Mr Zuckerberg, leaked online and in the press last year, at the time of the settlement.

The messages shed new light on the nature of the relationship between the twins and Mr Zuckerberg at the time he founded Facebook in his Harvard dorm in 2004, the twins say.

In a statement, Facebook’s outside counsel Neel Chatterjee said, “These are old and baseless allegations that have been considered and rejected previously by the courts.”

Long running drama

Mr Zuckerberg was hired by the twins and Mr Narenda as a developer on their own social networking project, ConnectU. A few weeks later Zuckerberg launched thefacebook.com, allegedly using source code written for ConnectU.

The story was dramatised last year in the Oscar-nominated film ‘The Social Network’.

Facebook did not admit any wrong doing at the time of the 2008 settlement.