Mark Zuckerberg and several figures from the American technology sector, who hold or held positions within Facebook (now Meta), have reached an agreement to put an end to a negligence lawsuit linked to the Cambridge Analytica affair.
The transaction, reported to AFP on Thursday by two sources close to the matter, took place the day after the opening of the proceedings in a court in Wilmington (Delaware).
Shareholders of Facebook, a social network that has since become Meta, took legal action in the United States in 2018 after the outbreak of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
What the Cambridge Analytica affair is
This British consulting firm had collected, without authorization and without their knowledge, the personal data of tens of millions of Facebook users. This data was then used for political targeting purposes during the 2016 American election campaign and the Brexit referendum.
The shareholders criticized Mark Zuckerberg, as well as his former number two, Sheryl Sandberg (who left in 2022), for having shown, on this occasion, negligence in the management of the group.
Also targeted were administrator Marc Andreessen, a private equity figure in the technology sector, as well as former members of the board of directors, entrepreneur and investor Peter Thiel and Joe Biden’s former chief of staff, Jeffrey Zients.
All were also accused of insider trading.
Meta was not prosecuted as a legal entity.
More than eight billion claimed
The shareholders, formed as a class action, demanded more than eight billion $ in damages, a sum based on a calculation including fines paid by Facebook to settle lawsuits relating to Cambridge Analytica, as well as legal costs.
The $5 billion fine imposed by the American Consumer Protection Agency FTC was, in part, linked to the violation of an agreement reached in 2012 with the government including Facebook’s commitment to no longer give third parties access, without authorization, to the personal data of users of the social network.
The defendants were all supposed to be interviewed during the trial, but the agreement spares them a public appearance before the Delaware court, with only Jeffrey Zients having testified at the opening on Wednesday.
The amount of the agreement is not known.
