Man Claims to Own 84% of FaceBook, Sues...

[pradaboy]

Facebook has always been hopping from one puddle of troubled waters to another. This time, as per a report by The Wall Street Journal, a man named Paul D. Cegalia has filed a law suit against Fac and has also demanded monetary damages. Ok, stop laughing, this is serious! Cegalia had filed a suit in the Supreme Court of New York, claiming that he had signed a contract with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg back in 2003 which entitles him to own 84 percent of social network giant Facebook.


Under this contract, Cegalia had allegedly agreed to develop and design a website with Mark Zuckerberg. In return, Zuckerberg had agreed to pay him $1,000 and give him a 50 percent stake in the final product -- which turned out to be Facebook.com. Also, in the file suit, Cegalia stated that Zuckerberg had agreed to pay an additional 1 percent stake per day until the website is completed and thus an 84 percent stake in the company as of February 4, 2004.

The digital copy of the lawsuit can be found here. The copy of the contract says:

"for the purchase and design of a suitable website for the project Seller [Mr. Zuckerberg] has already initiated that is designed to offer the students of Harvard university [sic] access to a wesite [sic] similar to a live functioning yearbook with the working title of 'The Face Book."

Following this, judge Thomas Brown issued restraining order blocking any transfer of Facebook Inc's assets. A Facebook spokesperson in a statement said, "We believe that this suit is completely frivolous and we will fight it vigorously." Facebook has requested for the case to be moved to federal court.

In 2009, New York's Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo had Ceglia of defrauding customers of his wood-pellet fuel company, according to a news release from the Attorney General's office. The contract appears to be unusual and it's unclear what would be end result of this lawsuit.

Who could Cegalia possibly be? Could he be an old rival or a disgruntled employee? There's no clarity on that. This, however, isn't a new story but a common one where a small startup or brand makes it big and someone (out of nowhere!) tries to get his/her share in it. But in this legal matter and we'd rather wait for court's verdict on the same.

http://www.techtree.com/India/News/M...12262-643.html

More trouble in paradise?

[ottopottomouse]

Be interesting to see whether they can just show somehow that facebook is a different thing to the original project and say fuck off or whether this actually has any merit.

[seeandsee]

this will be interested, law is law, contract is contract

[JFK]

Interesting

[Amputate Your Head]

Finally, a case of "fuck the designer" karma in action.

[DamianJ]

Originally Posted by ottopottomouse

Be interesting to see whether they can just show somehow that facebook is a different thing to the original project and say fuck off or whether this actually has any merit.

The ArseWithClass style spelling suggests he didn't employ the best of lawyers to send the threat. My guess is this is going nowhere.