Facebook already hit with four lawsuits over Cambridge Analytica (updated)
Three were filed by shareholders.
It has been a week since the bombshell reports on Cambridge Analytica's use of Facebook user data dropped and already the social media giant is facing at least four lawsuits. Along with a class action suit filed earlier this week on behalf of Facebook users whose data was obtained by Cambridge Analytica, three shareholders have also filed their own complaints.
Bloomberg reported earlier this week that shareholder Fan Yuan filed a class action lawsuit against Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg and CFO David Wehner in a San Francisco federal court. Yuan's suit focuses on the drop in share price following the Cambridge Analytica revelations and seeks to represent those who purchased shares between February 3rd, when Facebook released its annual report, and March 19th, two days after the New York Times report was published. Shareholder Robert Casey filed a similar complaint in a San Jose court this week, SFGate reports.
An additional lawsuit filed by Jeremiah Hallisey in San Jose names Zuckerberg, COO Sheryl Sandberg and Facebook board members Marc Andreessen, Peter Thiel, Reed Hastings, Erskine Bowles, Susan Desmond-Hellmann and Jan Koum as defendants. "Each of the Defendants consciously and deliberately breached their fiduciary duties of candor, good faith, loyalty and reasonable inquiry to Facebook and its stockholders by failing to act to ensure Facebook maintained adequate internal controls to comply with the consent order and other applicable laws," the complaint states. It seeks damages and a court direction for Facebook to improve its corporate governance.
Facebook has been hit with inquiries from Congress and the UK Parliament. It's also being investigated by the states of New York and Massachusetts and reportedly the FTC. Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg finally addressed the situation this week, days after the reports surfaced.
Update: Actually, make that six lawsuits. As Ars Technica's Cyrus Farivar notes, two more have now been filed -- one in Illinois and one in Texas. In Illinois, two Facebook users -- Victor Comforte II and Brendan Carr -- have filed for a class action suit wherein they seek compensatory and punitive damages on behalf of themselves and a number of other individuals. The suit names Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg and Cambridge Analytica as defendants as well as up to 100 other unnamed individuals. In Texas, Facebook user Matthew Lodowski has filed a class action suit and also seeks damages. His complaint names Facebook, Cambridge Analytica, Robert Mercer and Aleksandr Kogan as defendants.
