The situation proves the tagline of the up coming movie (The Social Network) on Facebook’s CEO’s life correct. You really can not get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies. The latest addition to Mark Zuckerberg’s woes and foes is a law suit filed on June 30th by a New Yorker called Paul D. Ceglia in the Supreme Court of New York’s Allegany county, who claims that he owns (or deserves to) 84% of the world’s biggest and richest social network. Ceglia is claiming in the suit that he entered into a contract with Zuckerberg in 2003 to design and develop a website that would eventually become Facebook. The contract entitled him to a $ 1000 fee and a 50% stake in the final product which launched as TheFacebook.com originally.
The suit also claims that Ceglia was also promised an additional 1% stake per day until the site was completed, giving him a whopping 84% stake in the company as of February 2004. The guy has obviously done his homework and is going all out in his pursuit as he has managed to move the court to issue a temporary restraining order, barring Zuckerberg and his company from transferring any assets.
According to experts, that’s how far Paul D. Ceglia is going to get though. His timing of filing the suit (6 years after signing the contract) goes against him and he was sued last year for failing to deliver ‘wood pellets’ to customers and owing $ 200,000 in damages. Facebook officials are vowing to fight the case and have requested the case to be transferred to a federal court.
We believe this suit is completely frivolous and we will fight it vigorously,
Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt said in a statement. Facebook is trying to get the case dismissed or annulled before going to trial.
Ceglia v. Zuckerberg complaint
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