Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2011/06/24/winklevoss_boston_court_filing/

Winklevoss twins are back in Facebook's face

It's not over until the burly 20-fingered gondolier sings

By Kelly Fiveash

Posted in Legal, 24th June 2011 10:32 GMT

Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss haven't backed away entirely from their epic row with Facebook, despite ending a Supreme Court appeal against an earlier ruling.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the strapping, slightly creepy Olympic rowing twins, alongside biz partner Divya Narendra, are trying to convince a judge to probe whether the world's largest social network "intentionally or inadvertently suppressed evidence".

Earlier this week, the Winklevoss brothers and Narendra decided not to appeal against a ruling upholding their $65m settlement with Facebook, after a long-running dispute with the company's founder Mark Zuckerberg.

But it turns out the fight, dramatically chronicled in the Hollywood flick The Social Network, isn't quite over yet.

In April this year the Winklevoss twins and Narendra lost an appeal against a February 2008 settlement with Facebook, which granted them $20m in cash and $45m in the firm's shares.

It turns out in that same month that the men were planning to ask the Boston federal court to look into their allegations that Facebook and the company's legal team concealed instant messages from them during litigation.

However, the request to examine those claims was put in stasis while the Supreme Court appeal case remained pending. Now that the Winklevoss boys have abandoned that plan, the case in Boston can now proceed.

Facebook lawyers dug out instant messages from Zuckerberg's computer that were later leaked to Silicon Alley Insider in 2010.

"I'm going to fuck them," wrote Zuckerberg in one exchange during his time at Harvard, notes the LA Times.

In another, he said the twins had "made a mistake haha. They asked me to make it for them. So I'm like delaying it so it won't be ready until after the Facebook thing comes out."

The Winklevoss men argue that they wouldn't have agreed to the settlement had they been aware of the IM exchange. As a result, their oars are well and truly poking Zuck again.

Facebook responded coolly to the latest legal spat.

"These are old and baseless allegations that have been considered and rejected previously by the courts," said the company's attorney Neel Chatterjee. ®