Winklevoss Twins Drop Facebook Lawsuit
Facebook: "We've considered this case closed for a long time."
| Posted Thursday, June 23, 2011, at 11:15 AM
Olympic rowing twins and fine specimens of masculinity Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss have chosen not to appeal to the Supreme Court over a ruling that upheld their $65-million settlement with Facebook Inc. and founder Mark Zuckerberg, Reuters reports.
The Winklevoss twins agreed in 2008 to accept a cash-and-stock accord to resolve a dispute over whether Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook from the twins while attending Harvard University. The Winklevosses, along with fellow Harvard student Divya Narendra, claim that Zuckerberg ascended to Internet fame and fortune with an idea for a social networking site he stole from them.
The brothers eventually backpedaled on the settlement, claiming that Facebook had withheld information from them, rendering the accord fraudulent.
On April 11, a San Francisco federal appeals court upheld the settlement. Although the twins had been planning to appeal that ruling, they submitted a filing Wednesday saying that after “careful consideration,” they had decided not to seek Supreme Court intervention.
A delightfully catty statement from Facebook reads, “We’ve considered this case closed for a long time, and we’re pleased to see the other party now agrees.”
The Winkevosses’ decision should pave the way for Facebook to seek the dismissal of a similar lawsuit in a Boston federal court.
The Winklevloss-Zuckerberg dispute and their “It’s complicated” relationship were dramatized in the 2010 film The Social Network.
