
CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify over shareholder allegations regarding Cambridge Analytica fallout
Meta executives including CEO Mark Zuckerberg and former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg will appear before a US corporate law court this week as shareholders claim board failures resulted in billions of dollars in penalties following the 2010s Cambridge Analytica scandal, the Financial Times reported.
In the proceedings scheduled to start Wednesday in the US state of Delaware, high-profile individuals scheduled to testify include investor Marc Andreessen, former board member Jeff Zients – a former top adviser to ex-US President Joe Biden – investor Peter Thiel, former American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault, and Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings.
A small group of Meta minority shareholders contend that company directors deliberately permitted inadequate privacy safeguards, breaching a 2012 Federal Trade Commission (FTC) agreement established to safeguard user data, which the defendants reject.
The legal action originates from the Cambridge Analytica incident, which involved unauthorized access to user information by a political consulting firm via an external application.
The shareholders demand compensation related to Meta's $5 billion FTC resolution in 2019, arguing the board shielded Zuckerberg by accepting the penalty without conducting proper internal review.
They further claim Zuckerberg improperly traded billions in company shares based on confidential knowledge of Meta's unauthorized data-sharing activities.