Winklevoss twins end their Facebook lawsuit

THE WINKLEVOSS TWINS are ending their lawsuit against Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss decided to accept a settlement they agreed to in 2008, despite having made several appeals for additional money since then.

The twins agreed to drop their ongoing litigation, bringing an end to a long-standing dispute with Zuckerberg over who came up with the idea for Facebook. Part of that dispute was dramatised in the movie The Social Network.

The original settlement included a cash payment of $20 million and shares worth $45 million at the time. Since then those shares have risen in value significantly, bringing the total settlement value to roughly $160 million.

However, they claimed that they were misled about the value of Facebook shares, thinking they were worth $35.90 each, not the real value of $8.88, which obviously was significantly less. They claimed that a Microsoft investment gave the impression of greater value and said they would have asked for more shares if they had known of their actual lower value.

The judge did not buy their story, saying that they were sophisticated enough and had the backing of half a dozen lawyers to know what they were getting into. The judge dismissed their appeal in early April.

That did not end the case, however, as the twins launched yet another appeal a week later. The hearing in that case was put on hold last week, but now the twins have run out of courts to appeal the case to, having decided not to appeal to the US Supreme Court, and must struggle to get by with their current millions.

In the end the twins probably would have been better off to have just accepted what they agreed to in 2008. The legal costs they've incurred during the last few years of litigation undoubtedly have eaten into their settlement amount, leaving them with less than they had before. µ