Overview

• The non-jury trial began July 14 in Delaware’s Court of Chancery under Judge Kathaleen McCormick and is scheduled to run eight days.
• Shareholders filed a derivative suit accusing Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg, Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel and Reed Hastings of knowingly violating the 2012 FTC privacy consent order.
• Plaintiffs are seeking more than $8 billion to cover the record $5 billion FTC penalty and related costs from the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal.
• Investors allege Zuckerberg profited at least $1 billion by selling shares ahead of the Cambridge Analytica fallout, while defendants maintain that robust compliance measures were in place.
• Legal experts say this first-of-its-kind Delaware trial over conscious oversight failures could establish a new precedent for corporate governance and fiduciary duty.