A U.S. federal appeals court on Monday ruled that two former Harvard University schoolmates do not have a right to negotiate a better settlement over the creation of social network Facebook.
The U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco rejected claims of Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss who argued they were misled about Facebook's value when they agreed to settle the suit that alleged Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stole their idea for the social networking website.
A three-judge panel of the court ruled unanimously that the settlement was "valid and enforceable."
In 2008, the two agreed to settle for 20 million U.S. dollars in cash payment and 1.25 million shares based on a stock price of 35.9 dollars. But months later, Facebook valued the strike price for employee stock options as 8.88 dollars a share. The Winklevoss twins argued that they would have demanded four times as they got based on the lower valuation.
Facebook was valued at 50 billion dollars recently as part of an investment by Goldman Sachs and is expected to undertake an initial public offering next year.
The lawsuit between the Winklevoss twins and Zuckerberg was depicted in the film "The Social Network" last year, which got an Oscar nomination for best picture. The twins competed in the men's pair rowing event at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
