ConnectU Counsel Claims “$65 Million” Facebook Settlement

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, the law firm that represented ConnectU and the Winklevoss brothers in their protracted lawsuit against Facebook that ended in settlement last April, has claimed in a marketing brochure for the firm that the amount of the settlement totaled “$65 million,” according to Law.com.

The disclosure was “apparently inadvertent.”

ConnectU, founded by twins Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss along with Harvard classmate Divya Narendra, originally filed suit against Facebook in 2004, claiming that Mark Zuckerberg and his fellow Facebook co-founders (also Harvard classmates) essentially stole the idea and initial code from ConnectU, then called HarvardConnection, and instead launched their own site, at the time called TheFacebook. However, the suit was eventually dismissed on a technicality, and nothing much more came of it. ConnectU then resuscitated the case in 2007, and Facebook counter-sued in response before settling in 2008 for a mix of cash and stock.

It’s not clear what valuation on Facebook’s stock Quinn Emmanuel used to calculate the $65 million number. Ironically, after reaching the settlement last year, the Winklevoss brothers dismissed Quinn Emmanuel, apparently upset with the settlement, and the firm immediately filed a lien against any settlement collected by ConnectU.

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2 Responses to “ConnectU Counsel Claims “$65 Million” Facebook Settlement”

  1. AP: Facebook Settled ConnectU Case for $20 Million in Cash + Stock says:

    [...] we reported the story from Law.com in which Quinn Emmanuel, counsel for ConnectU in its case against Facebook, claimed in a marketing [...]

  2. Facebook Announces Settlement of Legal Dispute with Another Former Zuckerberg Classmate says:

    [...] CEO Mark Zuckerberg were classmates at Harvard. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but if the rumored $65 million settlement with the founders of ConnectU is any indication, it’s possible Greenspan’s settlement [...]

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