Facebook lawyers move to have Ceglia case dismissed as “a fradulent shakedown”

Lawyers for the social networking website Facebook filed a motion asking a federal judge to dismiss an "opportunistic" lawsuit by a brought forward by a man claiming half-ownership of the site.

Paul Ceglia claims he made a contract with the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in 2003 for a 50% stake in a project that would eventually become Facebook, the Globe and Mail reports.

However, Facebook's lawyers say the case,which dates from 2010, was filed “in hopes of extorting a settlement” through a “fraudulent scheme”, the newspaper says.

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Associated Press explains that Ceglia claims to have hired Zuckerberg when he was a freshman at Harvard University to to help him develop a street-mapping database.  He says he also gave Zuckerberg $US1000 for his fledgling Facebook idea in exchange for half-ownership of the company if it succeeded.

However, as the Los Angeles Times reports, Facebook alleges the contract Ceglia claims to have signed with Zuckerberg signed is a forgery and that the emails presented to support his case are also fake.

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The lawyers obtained 200 emails from Harvard University's which they say shows the real conversations between Zuckerberg and Ceglia.

The San Francisco Chronicle says the motion to dismiss points out a number of errors in Ceglia's evidence, arguing for example that there were inconsistencies in the formatting and the date stamps referred to Eastern Daylight Time on dates when it wasn't in effect.

Ceglia and his lawyers are still reviewing the motion to dismiss and have declined to comment.

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