The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that it will hear arguments from Facebook to dismiss a private securities fraud lawsuit that says the Meta-owned business misled investors about the company’s and third parties’ misuse of user data in 2017 and 2018. Facebook had appealed a lower court’s decision to allow the shareholder lawsuit, led by Amalgamated Bank, to continue.
The class action lawsuit was filed in 2018 after reports that Cambridge Analytica, a British political consulting firm, had gained access to as many as 87 million users’ data in connection with the election of former President Donald Trump in 2016. The case was later amended after additional reports stating that the social media platform shared user data without express consent to dozens of third parties.
The case accuses Facebook, as well as higher-up company officials, of breaching the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. In 2021, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila dismissed the lawsuit; however, it was restored in a 2-1 ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco.
