A federal appeals court on Monday ended years of litigation between Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his former Harvard classmates, the Winklevoss twins, who claim Zuckerberg robbed them of the idea for Facebook and then lied about its valuation.
After initially settling with Zuckerberg for $65 million in 2008, as depicted at the end of Aaron Sorkin's critically acclaimed movie "The Social Network," Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss tried to re-open the settlement in January.
They argued that back in 2008, Zuckerberg had lied about Facebook's true value in order to push ahead with the 2008 settlement, which might explain why the Winklevoss' former allotment of shares is now valued at around $140 million, according to PaidContent.
Facebook's initial request to enforce the settlement was approved by a lower court. Today, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed.
In his 11-page opinion, Judge Alex Kozinski wrote: "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.
"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. For whatever the reason, they now want to back out. Like the district court, we see no basis for allowing them to do so.
"At some point, litigation must come to an end," he added. "That point has now been reached."
Colin Stretch, deputy general counsel of Facebook, said in a statement, "We appreciate the Ninth Circuit's careful consideration of this case and are pleased the court has ruled in Facebook's favor."
The Winklevoss twins, nicknamed "Winklevii" in the media, along with Divya Narendra, started a social-networking site called ConnectU during their tenure at Harvard. They claim that Zuckerberg, a former classmate and freelancer for ConnectU, stole their idea to launch Facebook. The four reached a settlement in 2008, which left the Winklevii and Narendra with $65 million.