Facebook Claimant Says He Has Zuckerberg`s E-Mails to Prove 50% Ownership
Baku, April 12 (AZERTAC). E-mails allegedly written by Facebook Inc. co-founder Mark Zuckerberg are cited in a new court filing by Paul Ceglia as proof of his claim that he`s entitled to 50 percent of the company under a 2003 contract.
The revised complaint, filed yesterday in federal court in Buffalo, New York, includes new allegations supporting Ceglia`s claim to own half of Palo Alto, California-based Facebook, the world`s biggest social networking site, including that Zuckerberg sent numerous e-mails discussing the terms of the contract and the early development of “The Face Book” with Ceglia.
“They`re exactly what you would expect between two people trying to develop a website,” said Robert Brownlie, a lawyer for Ceglia, referring to the e-mails in a telephone interview.
Ceglia alleges that Zuckerberg defrauded him, lying about the early success of “The Face Book” at Harvard University, where Zuckerberg was a student at the time. Ceglia claims he is entitled to half of Facebook, a closely owned company worth as much as $55 billion, according to Sharespost.com, an online marketplace for investment in companies that aren`t publicly traded.
On the same day that Ceglia revised his complaint, a federal appeals court resolved in Zuckerberg`s favor a years- long legal battle dramatized in the Academy Award-winning 2010 film “The Social Network” that pitted Zuckerberg against former classmates from Harvard who accused him of stealing the idea for Facebook.
Ceglia claims in his complaint that he contributed “his time, ideas, knowhow, and other `sweat equity`” to the start of Facebook.
`Fraudulent Lawsuit`
“This is a fraudulent lawsuit brought by a convicted felon, and we look forward to defending it in court,” said Orin Snyder, a lawyer for Facebook, in an e-mailed statement. Snyder may have been referring to Ceglia`s 1997 guilty plea to possession of hallucinogenic mushrooms in Carthage, Texas. Ceglia was fined $15,000 and permitted to return to New York state, according to court files.
“From the outset, we`ve said that this scam artist`s claims are ridiculous and this newest complaint is no better,” Snyder, a partner in the firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, said in the statement.
In yesterday`s ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco, a panel of judges rejected a request by former Harvard students Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss to undo a settlement they reached with Zuckerberg in 2008. The Winklevoss twins argued the 2008 agreement should be voided because Facebook didn`t disclose an accurate valuation of its shares before they agreed to settle for $65 million in stock and cash.
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