Mark Zuckerberg and current and former high-ranking employees at Meta settled claims that sought $8 billion for damages caused by repeatedly allowing violations of Facebook users’ privacy.
A lawyer for the shareholders told Judge Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery on Thursday that the case has settled. Details of the settlement were not disclosed, and defense lawyers did not address the judge, according to Reuters.
Shareholders at Meta sued Zuckerberg, billionaire venture capitalist and board member Marc Andreessen, and others to hold them liable for billions of dollars in fines and legal costs the company paid in recent years in legal battles over privacy.
They alleged that the current and former board members failed to supervise the company’s compliance with a 2012 agreement with the Federal Trade Commission to stop collecting and sharing personal data without users’ consent. They also claimed that Zuckerberg knowingly ran the company as a way to harvest data illegally.
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One former board member, Jeffrey Zients, testified Wednesday that Meta did not agree to the FTC fine to save Zuckerberg from legal liability, as the shareholders had alleged.
The case stemmed from the revelation that a political consulting firm working for President Donald Trump’s campaign in 2016 accessed data from millions of Facebook accounts. Those revelations led to the FTC’s $5 billion fine at the time.
CORRECTION: In a previous version of this story, the Washington Examiner reported that Mark Zuckerberg and current and former Meta officials reached an $8 billion settlement. The settlement sought $8 billion, but the full amount was not disclosed. The Washington Examiner regrets the error.
