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Court Rejects Winklevoss Twins' Facebook Appeal

Posted by Soulskill on from the zuckerberg-likes-this dept.

angry tapir writes "A US federal appeals court has denied a request by the Winklevoss twins to release them from their settlement with Facebook over their allegations that Mark Zuckerberg improperly appropriated their idea for the social networking site. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, along with another Harvard classmate, agreed to the settlement in 2008 but the twins later asked a district court to let them back out, saying they were misled by Facebook about the value of the company's shares they received as part of the deal. On Monday, a three-judge appeals court panel sided with the lower court, noting that the Winklevoss twins have actually fared quite well since the settlement was hammered out because the value of Facebook, pegged recently at around $50 billion, means that their shares have more than tripled in value."

5 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. Knowledgeable by Warbane · · Score: 5, Funny

    ITT: Commenters who have seen The Social Network and, accordingly, are now experts on the matter.

  2. Made my day.. by NovaSupreme · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ""The Winklevosses are not the first parties bested by a competitor who then seek to gain through litigation what they were unable to achieve in the marketplace."
    I wish judiciary was that clear and just in other cases, but this comment made my day.

    1. Re:Made my day.. by NovaSupreme · · Score: 5, Interesting

      PS: the reason I went so ga-ga over this new was because of a much sobering ruling I saw yesterday - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/10/opinion/10thompson.html but I digress..

      PS2: Since Winklevosses claim to have had the original idea and design, they should have known how much $$ worth was their site. So, how did they got duped by Zuck? Glad judges saw through it..

  3. Eduardo by Compaqt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Speaking of greed, the way that Zuckerberg is reputed to have treated Eduardo, his partner, and the one who put up all the initial investment money for Facebook is worse than the situation with the W twins.

    He is reputed to have taken Eduardo's 30-some percent share down to 0 or so by issuing new stock to venture capitalists while keeping his and Sean Parker's percentages stable.

    One phrase for dealing with startups: "non-dilutable shares"

    --
    I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
  4. Look at his UID by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    GP has been here for a very long time. Hell, he probably is actually a grand parent. He has years, decades even, more experience about not RTFAing than the rest of us.