Cameron, a Winklevoss, at the Beijing Olympics.
It’s hard to have pity on someone who is worth $65 million dollars, but it’s a little easier when you’re dealing with a potential valuation of billions of dollars. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss have maintained for years that Facebook (the company that made Mark Zuckerberg Time’s Man of the Year and one of the youngest billionaires ever) is their idea, but they settled their lawsuit in 2008 for $65 million. Believing they were cheated out of their fair share, the Winklevii reopened their lawsuit. Well, the lawsuits are now over, and the Winklevoss twins were thoroughly defeated by Facebook’s lawyers.
Judge Alex Kozinski, who presided over the case, wrote a scathing 11-page condemnation of the Winklevoss Twins in his summary of the case. Said Judge Kozinski: “The Winklevosses are not the first parties bested by a competitor who then seek to gain through litigation what they were unable to achieve in the marketplace. With the help of a team of lawyers and a financial advisor, they made a deal that appears quite favorable in light of recent market activity. For whatever the reason, they now want to back out. Like the district court, we see no basis for allowing them to do so. At some point, litigation must come to an end. That point has now been reached.”
Ouch. That’s pretty brutal, even if it is an accurate assessment of the entire situation. If you settle for $65 million and your shares are now worth $114 million less than three years later, that’s a pretty good settlement in my opinion. No need to throw good money after bad, Winklevii.
Tags: Winklevoss Twins, Winklevii, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook lawsuit, Judge Alex Kozinski, Facebook lawsuit, federal court, Facebook lawsuit settled, ConnectU, Facebook lawsuit settled, Facebook money lawsuit thrown out
