The saga of eBay's sale of Skype is over - Silver Lake, Joltid Limited and other partners are now the proud owners of the VoIP provider.

eBay got about $1.9bn, and a note worth $125m for 70 per cent of the firm - it is holding onto the remaining 30 per cent.

The online tat bazaar paid over $3bn for Skype back in 2005 and never really made a clear case for why the buy was made or what it would add to its core auction business.

Skype founders Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis were pursuing a patent case against eBay in California. It emerged that the case was settled the same day that a judge ruled any hearing would have to be in the English courts - as specified when the buy was made - more on that here. ®

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