In an unprecedented $8 billion trial that begins this week, Mark Zuckerberg is anticipated to testify as a key witness. The CEO of Meta is charged with running Facebook as an unlawful business that permitted the collection of user data without authorization.
Zuckerberg and several current and former executives were sued by shareholders of Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, alleging that they repeatedly broke a 2012 agreement between Facebook and the Federal Trade Commission to secure user data.
The issue began in 2018 after it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica, a now-defunct political consulting business that supported Donald Trump’s victorious 2016 campaign for president of the United States, had obtained data from millions of Facebook users.
In 2019, the FTC fined Facebook a record $5 billion for breaking the 2012 agreement, and shareholders want Zuckerberg and the other defendants to pay back the company for over $8 billion in fines and other expenses that Meta had to pay after the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
The case’s defendants include former CEO Sheryl Sandberg, venture capitalist and board member Marc Andreessen, as well as former board members Reed Hastings, co-founder of Netflix (NFLX.O), and Peter Thiel, co-founder of Palantir Technologies (PLTR.O).
In court documents, Zuckerberg and the other defendants—who choose not to comment—have rejected the accusations as “extreme claims.” The non-defendant Meta also chose not to comment.
The eight-day non-jury trial in Wilmington, Delaware, is set to start on Wednesday. In order to ascertain how Facebook executives carried out the 2012 agreement, it will mostly concentrate on board meetings and incidents that occurred ten years ago.
