Facebook’s worst nightmare: The Winkelvii strike back

Not content with a US$65-million payout from Mark Zuckerberg, Tyler and Cameron Winkelvoss have launched another lawsuit against the founder of Facebook, re-igniting the lawsuit that was at the heart of this year’s gripping movie, “The Social Network.”

The lawsuit, which was filed in the United States District Court in Northern California, rests on the fact that “their former friend lied to them about the value of the company”. According to Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper, they “also claim that Zuckerberg is guilty of securities fraud and are demanding he pays them an unspecified amount of extra cash.”

With Facebook engaging in such an active period of growth, the lawsuit could not have come at a worse time. Zuckerberg must have thought he had put the Winkelvoss twins behind him.

But Facebook is not taking the lawsuit lying down. Its army of lawyers has sprung into action, claiming that “the original settlement is enforceable because it clearly communicated the parties’ intention to be bound and the terms were definite.”

Facebook added that the twins were “suffering from buyers remorse, and that their sworn enemy had some special duty to open its books and volunteer any information that bears on the value of this closely held company”.

To all those who have seen David Fincher’s recent movie, the case is still fresh in the mind. It was in 2003 that the Winkelvoss twins approached Zuckerberg and pitched him their idea for “Harvard Connection”. Zuckerberg accepted the job, then promptly went on to found “thefacebook.com” which became the legendary Facebook.

While that case was finally settled in 2008, the acrimony and bitterness clearly never went away, and no doubt the infamy from the movie and Zuckerberg’s astronomical wealth have pushed the twins to re-open the case.

For a time it appeared that the twins had made peace with Facebook, especially after both of them opened individual Facebook accounts. “Our issue has never been with the product,” says Tyler during an interview to promote the movie, “our issue is with Mark Zuckerberg, and it’s an ownership issue.”

During that interview it became obvious that the twins were still unhappy with the settlement and harboured feelings of bitterness towards Zuckerberg.

Watch the interview:

The twins also gave an interview to Bloomberg in October about the settlement and made it clear that they were would be pursuing a new legal strategy.

Watch that interview here.