Facebook Inc. has become involved in a payment dispute over its $725 million settlement of a lawsuit concerning data sharing with Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm linked to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. The plaintiffs’ counsel is demanding additional payments exceeding $319,000 in interest due to a delay in lodging the settlement funds into an escrow account. Despite making a payment of $721 million, which subtracted payments made to the settlement administrator, Facebook is yet to address the interest that would have accumulated if payment occurred in a timely fashion.
While both parties are discussing the interest payments, this contentious situation reveals another chapter in Facebook’s legal woes. This lawsuit was filed against Facebook, now Meta, in 2018 following public revelation that the British research firm had illicitly accessed data from at least 87 million Facebook users without their consent, contributing to Trump’s campaign. The social media giant had also paid a fine of $5 billion to the US government in July 2019 to resolve an investigation rooted in part by the ongoing controversy over Cambridge Analytica’s alleged data harvesting.
Facebook’s legal consultant, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, was imposed with $925,000 in penalties due to its conduct in the case. Judge Vince Chhabria had stated in a February order that both the firm and Facebook participated in a calculated, bad-faith effort to pressurise plaintiffs into a low-priced settlement. Representing the plaintiffs are Keller Rohrback LLP and Bleichmar Fonti & Auld LLP, while Gibson Dunn; Maynard Nexsen PC; Ross Aronstam & Moritz LLP; and Lewis & Llewellyn LLP are providing representation for Facebook.
All these aforementioned details pertain to the case: In re Facebook Inc. Consumer Privacy User Profile Litig, N.D. Cal., No. 3:18-md-02843, 11/2/23.
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