SAN FRANCISCO – Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss found a skeptical audience on Tuesday as they tried to persuade a U.S. appeals court to release them from a $65 million settlement over the founding of online social network Facebook.
The saga of the Winklevoss twins and Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg became silver screen lore with the release of the film “The Social Network” last year. It has long been a legal battle as well.
Should the case be revived, it could be a big headache for the fast-growing social networking firm, which has seen a frenzy of investor interest for its privately held shares and is being closely-watched for signs that it might eventually stage a blockbuster initial public offering.
The 6-foot, 5-inch (1.96-meter) brothers were hard to miss in the front row at the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday. The two, Olympic rowers who participated in the 2008 games in Beijing, wore dark suits and listened quietly as a three-judge panel peppered their attorney with questions.
Zuckerberg did not attend the court hearing involving his former Harvard University classmates. In the movie, actor Armie Hammer played both identical twins, who Zuckerberg’s character snidely referred to on-screen as the “Winklevi.” The twins, along with Divya Narendra, started a company called ConnectU while at Harvard. They say that Zuckerberg stole their idea. Facebook denies these claims. The twins argue that based on an internal valuation that Facebook did not disclose, they should have received more Facebook shares as part of their 2008 settlement resolving their lawsuit. Facebook argues it was under no obligation to reveal an internal valuation.
Facebook has said in court filings that the Winklevoss twins “suffered a bout of settlers’ remorse” after agreeing to the deal which had been valued at $65 million. A Facebook representative said via email on Tuesday that the company appreciates the court’s time and also looks forward to a decision.
Facebook earned $355 million in net income and $1.2 billion of revenue in 2010’s first nine months, according to documents that Goldman Sachs provided to clients last week to entice investors in a special fund set up to invest in the social networking giant.
A growing secondary market has developed for trading private shares of Facebook.
