Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg appears to be headed to a court hearing in Delaware nearly a year after Facebook dropped a controversial plan to issue a special class of non-voting stock
A group of institutional shareholders challenged the reclassification, which would have allowed Zuckerberg to retain voting control of Facebook long after drawing down his shares by using sales of his personal stake in the company to fund his philanthropic pledge.
Shortly before Zuckerberg was scheduled to testify in Delaware Chancery Court last September, Facebook withdrew the plan.
Now, Delaware Chancery Court Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster wants Zuckerberg to appear at an evidentiary hearing in connection regarding attorneys’ fees in the case.
“One of the things that I think will be essential in this evidentiary hearing is for Mr. Zuckerberg to testify about his plans for giving and the time frame of giving, since that has been such a major source of ambiguity in terms of {Facebook’s} position on why this can’t be valued,” Laster said in a July 26 hearing, according to a court transcript.
No date has yet been set.
Shareholders have been represented by law firms Grant & Eisenhofer, Wilmington, (Stuart Grant as lead trial counsel); Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check (Lee Rudy); and Prickett, Jones & Elliott, Wilmington, (Corinne Amato).
The possible hearing comes after Facebook shares posted a sharp drop after disappointing results and signs that engagement with the social media platform dropped.
The $100 billion loss in stock market value was the largest on record and came as scrutiny continues over Russian involvement in using Facebook to disrupt elections in the U.S. and elsewhere
