A New York man has sued Facebook for 84 percent ownership and a court has issued a temporary restraining order to prevent the transfer of the social-networking giant’s assets. The suit, filed by Paul D. Ceglia in the Supreme Court of Allegany County in New York at the end of last month, said a contract for web design work with company founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg guaranteed him that share.
Judge Thomas Brown issued the restraining order in early July, and Facebook’s lawyers have asked that the suit be transferred to federal court.
$1,000 Payment
Ceglia said the contract with Zuckerberg, dated April 28, 2003, was for Zuckerberg to develop and design a web site. The payment was $1,000, plus 50 percent of the resulting site, and an additional one percent interest in the company for every day after January 1, 2004, that it took for the site to be completed. It’s not clear how the 84 percent figure was derived.
The Wall Street Journal said it has seen a copy of the contract, which is for “the purchase and design of a suitable web site for the project seller has already initiated that is designed to offer the students” of Harvard University access to a web site “similar to a live functioning web yearbook with the working title of ‘The Face Book.'”
Zuckerberg is identified by the Journal as the seller. The publication also noted that a pre-Facebook site called Facemash was built by Zuckerberg in October and November 2003, and that thefacebook.com domain was registered in January 2004.
Facebook has issued a statement that the suit “is completely frivolous and we will fight it vigorously.” The Journal quotes a Columbia University law professor, Victor P. Goldberg, as saying the statute of limitations for contracts in New York is six years.
‘Repeatedly Lied to…