Federal judges ruled the Winklevoss twins cannot back out of their Facebook settlement
Two years ago, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss reached a settlement in the lawsuit accusing Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their idea for Facebook. The deal gave them twenty million dollars in cash and forty-five million dollars in Facebook stock, valued at thirty-six dollars per share at the time. Since then, the stock portion has followed Facebook’s rising prominence as the company expanded its user base and advertiser footprint, and investors chased growth. The panel noted in their ruling that the value of the yet-to-be-issued shares has climbed in tandem with Facebook’s overall market momentum, with estimates of the company’s value near fifty billion dollars cited earlier in the year. The evaluation of this rise wasn’t a surprise to anyone watching the tech space, where confidence in Facebook’s trajectory helped push valuations higher and inspired a wave of investors to reassess the potential returns embedded in stock-based components of legal settlements.
With the help of a team of lawyers and a financial adviser, the Winklevoss twins negotiated a deal that observers have described as favorable given the market environment. The judges said the arrangement appears prudent in light of recent activity and that the agreement stands as a legally enforceable settlement, binding the parties to their terms rather than allowing a course to unwind the transaction. This decision underscores the lasting nature of negotiated resolutions in high-stakes tech disputes and signals that parties can expect fair treatment when they enter into settlements with clear financial terms and a documented process for evaluating market impact.