Facebook paid $65 million to end suit

Zuckerberg was being sued by two former university classmates, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who claim that he stole the idea for Facebook from their social networking site HarvardConnect, later called ConnectU.

Zuckerberg settled out of court but the details of the case have been kept under wraps, despite legal efforts to find out the value of the deal.

However, Quinn Emmanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, a law firm in California who acted for ConnectU, has just trumpeted the amount paid in a newsletter advertising their prowess. The Recorder was the first to spot the advert.

The firm lists wins in the advertising newsletter and said it won $65 million from Facebook. The amount was paid in cash and Facebook shares.

“Sixty-five million is a significant sum – it’s certainly more than the cost of the defence,” said Chris Scott Graham

“But it’s a very small percentage of [Facebook’s] valuation and could therefore be argued by Facebook to be a payment based on considerations other than the merits of the claims.”

Firm chairman John Quinn asked The Recorder not to publish the details, and then declined to comment on the amount.