Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, Divya Narendra Of ConnectU Get $65 Million Lawsuit Settlement From Facebook

Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, Divya Narendra of ConnectU have received $65 million as a lawsuit settlement from Facebook.  The lawsuit accused Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg of stealing the idea for Facebook from them.  Although the settlement amount was supposed to be private, the financial settlement was still leaked by the law firm representing ConnectU itself.

“WON $65 million settlement against Facebook” stated a .pdf from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges’ January business litigation newsletter.   ConnectU fired Quinn Emanuel last year and are now dealing with a fee fight.  Quinn wants $13 million as part of a contingency agreement.

“Sixty-five million is a significant sum — it’s certainly more than the cost of the defense,” stated Chris Scott Graham, IP litigator for Dechert. “But it’s a very small percentage of [Facebook's] valuation and therefore could be argued by Facebook to be a payment based on considerations other than the merits of the claims.”  Dechert was not involved in the case.

Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, Divya Narendra came up with the idea of ConnectU as part of a daing website idea at Harvard University.  They hired Zuckerberg to code the idea.  Instead, Zuckerberg took code and created Facebook.  As Facebook grew at Harvard and expanded to other universities, Zuckerberg took funding from Silicon Valley and dropped out.

Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss participated at the U.S. Olympics as part of the rowing team last year.  Divya is currently the Co-founder and CEO of SumZero LLC.

[via VentureBeat]

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