Winklevoss twins lose Facebookappeal

A US appeals court ruled that Tyler and
Cameron Winklevoss can't back out of the
settlement deal they made in a lawsuit
charging that Mark Zuckerberg stole their
idea for Facebook.
"The Winklevosses are not the first parties
bested by a competitor who then seek to
gain through litigation what they were
unable to achieve in the marketplace," the
9th US Circuit Court of Appeals said.
"At some point, litigation must come to an
end," the court said. "That point has now
been reached."
Twin brothers Tyler and Cameron
Winklevoss claim they enlisted Zuckerberg to
finish software code for their ConnectU
social-networking website while they were
all students at Harvard University in 2003.
Zuckerberg, a second year student at the
time, took their code and their idea and
launched Facebook in February 2004
instead of holding up his end of the deal,
according to the brothers. Facebook rejects
that account.
Hollywood made the saga famous in the hit
film "The Social Network."
The twins inked a settlement two years ago
that got them $20 million in cash and $45
million worth of stock valued at $36 per
share.
The value of that yet-to-be-issued stock has
skyrocketed along with Facebook's
estimated market value, which was placed at
$50 billion early this year, the judges noted
in their ruling.
"With the help of a team of lawyers and a
financial advisor, they made a deal that
appears quite favorable in light of recent
market activity," the judges said.
"For whatever reason, they now want to
back out," they continued. "Like the district
court, we see no basis for allowing them to
do so."
The brothers challenged the settlement,
which was supposed to be confidential, on
the grounds that Zuckerberg suckered them
during settlement talks by not revealing
Facebook internally valued the stock at $9.
The lower figure would have resulted in the
Winklevoss twins getting many more shares.
Facebook welcomed the ruling.
"We appreciate the 9th Circuit's careful
consideration of this case and are pleased
the court has ruled in Facebook's favor,"
Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch said
in a statement.
Attorney Jerome Falk, who represents the
twins, said his legal team will file a petition
within 15 days for a "rehearing en banc" at
which the ruling would be reconsidered by
a panel of 11 appeals court judges.