A compromise was agreed today, Thursday 17 July, by the Mark Zuckerberg and former executives of Meta Platforms, from whom shareholders of the company were seeking $8 billion for damages caused by the 2018 scandal involving political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.

According to Reuters sources, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, Sam Klosick, said a deal between plaintiffs and defendants was reached quickly while postponing today’s trial, in which billionaire investor Mark Andreessen was due to testify.

It should be noted that Meta shareholders sued Zuckerberg, Andreessen and other former executives of the company to hold them accountable for the billions of dollars in fines and legal fees the company has paid in recent years following the Cambridge Analytica scandal. This scandal had come to light in 2018, when investigations revealed that Facebook allowed the British political consultancy to access the data of 87 million users – in violation of privacy laws.

As a result, shareholders wanted the 11 defendants in total to use their personal assets to compensate the company. The defendants denied the charges, which they called “extreme.”

It will also be recalled that the US Federal Trade Commission had fined Facebook $5 billion in 2019 as it found that the company did not comply with a 2012 agreement with the regulator to protect user data.