The trial of US $ 8 billion trial against Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other existing and former company officials began on Thursday. This case has been done by shareholders of meta platforms. According to CTVNews news, it is alleged that Mata (formerly Facebook) has illegally stored the data of Facebook users, violating the agreement with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 2012. In such a situation, challenging situations may arise for Zuckerberg in the coming days.
Trial starts with the testimony of Neel Richards
According to the news, the trial started with the testimony of the privacy expert Neel Richards of Washington University Law School, who said in the court that Facebook’s privacy policy was misleading.
This non-jury trial is heard by the Chief Judge of Delaware Chancery Court, Cathleen McCormic. These are the same judges who canceled Elon Musk’s $ 56 billion Tesla pay package last year.
Apart from Mark Zuckerberg, the trial includes Sheryl Sandberg, former Meta’s former COO Mark Andresen, venture capitalist and board member Peter Thail, Palantier Technologies co-founder Reid Hastings, Netflix Co-Founder White House Chief of Staff Jeffrey Giants.
How did this matter start?
The case related to meta privacy began in 2018 when it was revealed that a political consulting firm named Cambridge Analytica had access the data of crores of Facebook users. The firm was working for Donald Trump’s President’s election campaign in 2016. FTC imposed a fine of $ 5 billion on Facebook after this data leak, alleging that the company violated the 2012 agreement. Now the shareholders of Meta want FTC fines and second legal expenses- 8 billion dollars should be charged from the company guilty officers.
However, Meta or Zuckerberg has not yet made any public comments. The defendants in court filing have stated the allegations highly. It is also said that Facebook had appointed the external consulting firm to follow the agreement with FTC. Actually Facebook was a victim of Cambridge Analytica.
How much is the importance of the case
The lawsuit falls in the category of Caremark claim- that is, the board members are accused of not keeping enough monitoring on the company. Such cases are considered to be the most difficult in Delaware Corporate Act, but in recent years the court is accepting such cases for hearing. The meta trial has begun at a time when the corporate law has been changed in the delaware to make it difficult to prosecutes against controlled shareholders like Zuckerberg.
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