Between the Lines
Larry Dignan, Sam Diaz, Andrew NuscaFacebook settlement under fire: The Winklevoss twins ask court for more
By Sam Diaz | January 11, 2011, 1:36pm PST
Summary
Mark Zuckerberg’s former Harvard classmates - twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss - have changed their mind about a $65 million settlement from Facebook in 2008 and have asked an appeals court to void it, arguing that Facebook didn’t disclose an accurate valuation of its shares before agreeing to pay them $65 million in stock and cash, according [...]
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Larry Dignan
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Larry Dignan
Larry Dignan is Editor in Chief of ZDNet and SmartPlanet as well as Editorial Director of ZDNet's sister site TechRepublic. He was most recently Executive Editor of News and Blogs at ZDNet. Prior to that he was executive news editor at eWeek and news editor at Baseline. He also served as the East Coast news editor and finance editor at CNET News.com. Larry has covered the technology and financial services industry since 1995, publishing articles in WallStreetWeek.com, Inter@ctive Week, The New York Times, and Financial Planning magazine. He's a graduate of the Columbia School of Journalism and the University of Delaware.
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Sam Diaz
Biography
Sam Diaz
Sam Diaz is a senior editor at ZDNet. He has been a technology and business blogger, reporter and editor at the Washington Post, San Jose Mercury News and Fresno Bee for more than 18 years. He's a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and a graduate of California State University, Fresno.
Andrew Nusca
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Andrew Nusca
Associate Editor
Andrew J. Nusca is an associate editor for ZDNet and SmartPlanet. As a journalist based in New York City, he has written for Popular Mechanics and Men's Vogue and his byline has appeared in New York magazine, The Huffington Post, New York Daily News, Editor & Publisher, New York Press and many others. He also writes The Editorialiste, a media criticism blog.
He is a New York University graduate and former news editor and columnist of the Washington Square News. He is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He has been named "Howard Kurtz, Jr." by film critic John Lichman despite having no relation to him. A native of Philadelphia, he lives in New York with his fiancee and his cat, Spats.
Mark Zuckerberg’s former Harvard classmates - twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss - have changed their mind about a $65 million settlement from Facebook in 2008 and have asked an appeals court to void it, arguing that Facebook didn’t disclose an accurate valuation of its shares before agreeing to pay them $65 million in stock and cash, according to a Bloomberg report.
The lawyer representing the Winklevoss brothers says that the lawyers on both sides of the original settlement “made a mistake” with the settlement, noting that the transaction had “business issues that needed to be addressed and weren’t. They ended up with an agreement that’s vulnerable to the attack we’re making on it.” He argued that the settlement should be worth more now that Facebook has received a $450 million investment from Goldman Sachs.
Facebook has argued that the settlement is enforceable and that the Winklevosses are suffering from “settlers’ remorse..”
I’m inclined to side with Facebook on this one. Can anyone really expect a court to void a year-old settlement because the company is now worth more? Of course it’s worth more - it’s growing. And, at this rate, it will continue to grow even more. Are we to expect the Winklevoss brothers to try to void a settlement every time Facebook shows signs of valuation growth?
The Winklevoss brothers should take their money and move on. The Facebook of today isn’t the same Facebook that was launched on the Harvard campus. This is the Facebook that Zuckerberg and his team in Palo Alto have built into what it is today.
If the courts void the settlement and bring this matter back into the judicial system, the only ones sure to get paid will be the lawyers.
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Disclosure
Sam Diaz
Sam Diaz has nothing to disclose.
Biography
Sam Diaz
Sam Diaz is a senior editor at ZDNet. He has been a technology and business blogger, reporter and editor at the Washington Post, San Jose Mercury News and Fresno Bee for more than 18 years. He's a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists and a graduate of California State University, Fresno.
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RE: Facebook settlement under fire: The Winklevoss twins ask court for more
By that logic, if Facebook was doing poorly, they could ask a court to void the settlement and pay the twins less.
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Tuesday, 11 January 2011
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