Mark Zuckerberg Expected To Appear As Star Witness In $8 Billion Trial Over Alleged Privacy Violations

The CEO of Meta Platforms Inc. META, Mark Zuckerberg, is expected to testify in a high-stakes trial where the company is accused of privacy violations.

What Happened: The trial that begins this week stems from a lawsuit filed by Meta shareholders, who claim the company, under Mark Zuckerberg’s leadership, permitted user data to be collected without consent, reported Reuters. The shareholders are seeking over $8 billion in reimbursement for fines and other costs incurred by Meta following the scandal.

The trial, which is expected to last eight days, will focus on events and board meetings from a decade ago to determine how the 2012 agreement was implemented by Facebook leaders.

Shareholders are pursuing reimbursement of over $8 billion in fines and related expenses incurred by Meta in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. This total includes a record $5 billion penalty imposed on Facebook by the FTC in 2019 for breaching a 2012 agreement.

Other defendants in the case include former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg; venture capitalist and current board member Marc Andreessen; and former board members Peter Thiel, co-founder of Palantir Technologies PLTR, and Reed Hastings, co-founder of Netflix NFLX.

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Why It Matters: The non-jury trial, set to run for eight days in Wilmington, Delaware, will focus on events and board meetings from over a decade ago to assess how Facebook's leadership carried out the 2012 agreement.

The ongoing trial adds to the legal challenges Meta is currently facing. In May, Meta urged a federal judge to dismiss the significant antitrust case filed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which could potentially lead to the company’s breakup.

Meanwhile, in June, Meta scored a legal victory when a federal judge ruled that the company’s use of copyrighted books to train its AI models is protected under the fair use doctrine, dismissing a lawsuit filed by 13 authors, including Sarah Silverman.

Despite these legal challenges, Meta’s stock has been performing relatively well. In the last six months, the stock has gained 20.74%, outperforming the S&P 500’s 7.13% rise.

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• Mark Zuckerberg May Have To Deal With A Long Line Of ‘Complaining’ Employees Outside Of His Door, Warns Michael Dell, Calls Meta’s AI Hiring Spree ‘Cultural Challenge’

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.