Meta shareholders, CEO settle $8 billion privacy lawsuit

An attorney for Meta Platforms shareholders informed a Delaware judge that Mark Zuckerberg and other current and former company directors and officers have agreed to settle lawsuits seeking $8 billion in damages for allegedly allowing repeated privacy violations of Facebook users. Billionaire Marc Andreessen, a defendant in the lawsuit and a Meta executive, was expected to testify today.

Meta shareholders have sued Zuckerberg, Andreessen, and other former company officials, including former COO Sheryl Sandberg, hoping to hold them accountable for billions of dollars in fines and legal costs the company has paid in recent years.

The Federal Trade Commission fined Facebook $5 billion in 2019 after finding it had failed to comply with a 2012 agreement with the regulator to protect user data. Meta investors said in the lawsuit that current and former board members were completely negligent in overseeing the company’s compliance with a 2012 Federal Trade Commission agreement and that Zuckerberg and former chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg intentionally ran Facebook as an illegal data collection operation.