Someone might be losing their job over this…

Apparently Facebook has paid the founders of ConnectU  (an online community for students and alumni of colleges and universities) $65 million to settle lawsuits that were accusing the Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, of stealing the idea for his insanely popular social-networking website.

“Lawyers in the heavyweight fight had expended great effort to keep the settlement secret — even going as far as persuading a judge to clear the courtroom of reporters on one occasion.”

Meant to remain confidential, ConnectU’s former lawyers from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges published the settlement amount in a marketing brochure, trumpeting the firm’s prowess.

“The ConnectU dispute got started at Harvard, where ConnectU’s founders, Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss and Divya Narendra hired fellow student Zuckerberg to work on code for a dating Web site for Harvard students. They sued Facebook in 2004, accusing Zuckerberg of delaying the project while using the information to start his own Web site. He quit Harvard and moved to Palo Alto, Calif., to start the company. ConnectU’s lawyers argued that it amounted to trade secret theft and copyright infringement. Last February, Facebook agreed to settle the matter by paying to acquire ConnectU. But soon after, the ConnectU founders claimed they were hoodwinked into a cheap settlement and said they had new evidence implicating Zuckerberg.”

After winning the lawsuit last year, ConnectU fired Quinn Emanuel. The two companies are now locked in  a fee battle, with ConnectU threatening to sue the firm for malpractice, and Quinn seeking $13 million pursuant to a contingency fee agreement.

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