Winklevoss Twins Attempting To Make More Money Out Of Facebook
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Those of you who’ve watched “The Social Network”, a movie that talks about how Facebook started out will definitely remember the Winklevoss twins. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss sued Facebook’s co-founder Mark Zuckerberg claiming that the leading social network’s current CEO stole their idea. The first lawsuit ended with a $65 million settlement. Despite that, the Winklevoss twins are at it again and decided to sue Zuckerberg a second time, now stating that they’ve been lied to regarding the value of Facebook. They also accuse Zuckerberg of securities fraud and they’re demanding an unspecified amount of money.
The movie shows what actually happened in real life. The Winklevosses hired Zuckerberg to create a social networking site for students at Harvard. Zuckerberg initially agreed to get the job done but ended up stalling for time as he chose to build his own project. He gave up the plan regarding the Harvard social network eventually and worked on what later on became Facebook. This pretty much sums up the story.
Moving back to “reality”, we’re not witnessing the second lawsuit involving the two parts. According to Mashable Facebook has filed new legal papers in answer to this recent lawsuit. The papers suggest that the Winklevoss twins are suffering from “settler’s remorse” and they’d previously calculated the value of the social networking site themselves with the help of an accurate press release from several months earlier. Facebook also believes that Mark Zuckerberg didn’t have the obligation of informing the Winklevosses on the true value of the company. “Their fraud claim is based on omission: they fault Facebook for not volunteering a more recent – and, they claim, lower – valuation of different Facebook stock. They insist that their sworn enemy had some special duty to open its books and volunteer any information that bears on the value of this closely held company” the legal papers stated.
The original case took place in 2004 and a settlement for $65 was reached in 2008. Shortly after the news of a second lawsuit became public on the web, Facebook came out and announced that there is no new litigation between the company and the Winklevoss twins. Rather, the fillings are simply the ones included in the twins’ two-year old yet so far unsuccessful attempt to undo the agreement from 2008 and settle the dispute.
How will things turn out? There’s no way to know exactly. There’s a slight chance the twins will get even more from Facebook but I doubt the social network is willing to compromise a lot more when it comes to these matters.
