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Facebook Wants Ownership Case Thrown Out
crimeandpunishment writes "Attorneys for Facebook and a New York man claiming majority ownership of the site faced off in a Buffalo courtroom Tuesday, and if Facebook gets its way there won't be too many more days in court. The site wants to get Paul Ceglia's claim thrown out of court. He claims a seven-year-old agreement with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg entitles him to 84 percent of the company. Facebook acknowledges Ceglia and Zuckerberg worked together, but says the contract Ceglia submitted was full of 'things that don't make sense.'"
The average user doesn't know how much of a dick Zuckerberg is. But this trial will expose that to more of the public, as will the upcoming Fincher movie.
And frankly Zuckerberg's history of screwing over other early partners, and intentionally screwing his users by constantly changing privacy settings to expose users will come out as evidence that he sought to exploit Ceglia and never honor the contract.
In the meantime, Google is putting together a Facebook killer. And the killer feature will be that your Mafia Wars and Farmville accounts will transfer over to this new social network, Google Me.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Are you telling me the VCs wouldn't have a contract with Zuckerberg that says he owes them absolutely everything if he failed to disclose a prior contractual obligation materially affecting the company? That would be crazy stupid if true.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Depends on his lawyers more than him.
They'll be looking at hundreds of millions of dollars in legal fees, no matter how long it takes. And they can offer to work on contingency.
If they believe it's righteous, they won't let anyone offer him X million. It's going to be a big chunk of the company, or it's going to go to court.
In truth, depending on what the VCs own, it may end up being only a big chunk of Zuckerberg's personal share of the company.
Though the fact that Zuckerberg may not have had the right to enter into deals with the VCs, since Ceglia may be the true owner of the company, may end up costing Zuckerberg all of his nut.
This isn't going away for 8 figures.
Has Facebook or Zuckerberg come out and said that the contract doesn't exist or is fraudulent?
So far they're just claiming the contract was full of stuff that doesn't make sense. That's a rather weak rebuttal don't you think?
OK the Facebook lawyer has serious questions about the authenticity of the contract? Yeah, go submit those questions to court.
They don't outright state the contract is invalid. I guess they're covering their butts just in case Zuckerberg "forgot" to tell them yet another little detail...
Zuckerberg doesn't seem that squeaky clean a character either.
Do contracts automagically expire after 7 years? I doubt it. If it's about exerting rights, lots of shareholders don't do much with their rights, but they do get interested if the CxOs start talking about selling the company without giving the shareholders their "fair share".