A New York web designer named Paul Ceglia claims to own an 84pc stake in social-networking site Facebook following a contract he claims CEO Mark Zuckerberg signed with him in 2003.
Ceglia filed a suit against Facebook, asserting that the 2003 contract signed by the two parties promises him US$1,000 and “an additional 1% interest in the business for every day after Jan. 1, 2004, until it was completed,” according to the Wall Street Journal.
Although Barry Schnitt, a spokesperson for Facebook, has called Ceglia’s lawsuit “frivolous” this has led to a temporary freeze in asset transfer for the social-networking site after acting New York Supreme Court Justice Thomas P Brown signed an order preventing the company and its CEO “from transferring, selling, assigning any assets, stocks, bonds, owned, possessed and/or controlled by the defendants,” until 9 July, the date of a hearing on the lawsuit.
While Ceglia is laying claim to 84pc of Facebook, Zuckerberg’s camp states that the contract predated Facebook and referred to the original FaceMash site in 2003, before thefacebook.com was ever registered.
