Unfortunately, Winklevoss twins and colleague Divya have to accept a cash and stock settlement with the social networking site that had been valued at $65m. The three decided not to settled with the said valued since they believed they were given by Facebook lawyers an undervalued amount, to chase more Facebook fortune.
The hopes of the three is over when 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled this morning that the twins will have to accept their original settlement of $65 million in Facebook shares which are now valued at $100 million.
Here's Federal Appeal Chief Judge Kozinski ruling.
“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. And the courts might have obliged, had the Winklevosses not settled their dispute and signed a release of all claims against Facebook.
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. See Geoffrey A. Fowler & Liz Rappaport, Facebook Deal Raises $1 Billion, Wall St. J., Jan. 22, 2011, at B4 (reporting that investors valued Facebook at $50 billion FACEBOOK v. CONNECTU, INC. 4911—3.33 times the value the Winklevosses claim they thought Facebook’s shares were worth at the mediation).
For whatever 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. That point has now been reached.”
