Legal fight over Facebook continues

Facebook has won multiple court rulings in its fight with Tyler, left, and Cameron Winklevoss, and legal experts say the Winklevosses are likely to lose this one too.

Brothers Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, who maintain that Mark Zuckerberg ripped them off to build Facebook, are contesting an out-of-court settlement reached three years ago.

By Jessica Guynn, Los Angeles Times
February 24, 2011
Reporting from San Diego

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss say they — not Mark Zuckerberg — invented Facebook.

And they are willing to risk $160 million for the chance to prove it.

The ambitious young Olympic rowers made famous in the Oscar-nominated "The Social Network" are taking their last shot at the gold — in London in 2012 and in San Francisco, where they are contesting an out-of-court settlement they reached with Facebook three years ago. If they prevail, their legal appeal would overturn the settlement, now worth in excess of $160 million because of the soaring value of the privately held company.

The Winklevosses won't say exactly how much they would seek in their high-stakes grudge fest with the billionaire Facebook founder, but by their own calculations they argue they should have received four times the number of Facebook shares. That would make any new settlement worth more than $600 million based on a recent valuation of Facebook at more than $50 billion.

(More here.)