The latest twist to The Social Network saga makes the film look like a flash in the pan.
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Just when Mark Zuckerberg thought he was safe from the Winklevoss brothers, another threat looms fast: Paul Ceglia.
So, what does this guy want? Half of Facebook, to be precise. Ceglia claims Zuckerberg signed a contract promising him a 50 per cent stake in the biggest social network in the world.
And who is he? A wood pellet maker, former web designer.
The lawsuit, first filed against the Facebook founder last July, by Ceglia in New York’s Supreme Court, claimed the Facebook CEO signed a contract with him in April 2003 to design and develop thefacebook.com, it’s original name.
But now Ceglia has hired a new team of lawyers and means business by all accounts with e-mails and other evidence to back up his claims.
In total, the former web designer claims he is owed around 84% of Facebook, on top of fees for services rendered and also the 1% stake he alleges Zuckerberg promised him for every day until the site was complete and up and running, which was in 2004.
And its not the only litigation the social network, which according to Wall Street Journal, could be worth up to $2 billion “fuelled by advertising growth,” has faced.
Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss just this week lost their appeal case against the social network, with a US court telling them they cannot back out of their earlier settlement.
“At some point, litigation must come to an end,” a US Court declared last week. “That point has now been reached.”
The pair claim fellow Harvard student, Zuckerberg, stole their idea and coding for a social networking site, called ConnectU.
Zuckerberg then failed to make them partners to the business, it had been claimed.
The other litigations, played out in last year’s hit movie The Social Network, have been taken by another fellow student Eduardo Saverin, who settled for about 5 percent of the company.
Saverin, who was made Zuckerberg’s business partner provided $US15,000 to help fund servers for set up the site and was promised 30 percent of the company.
Facebook, however has fought back to the latest round of claims and has branded Ceglia is a “scam artist” and a “convicted felon.”
A full round up of all the lawsuits the social network has been involved in can be read on blog Mashable.com.
