Jeffrey Zients, White House chief of staff under President Joe Biden and a Meta Platforms director for two years starting in May 2018, was the first defendant to take the stand on Wednesday in the $8 billion non-jury trial before Kathaleen McCormick, chief judge of the Delaware Chancery Court. Facebook changed its name to Meta in 2021.
“There was no indication he did anything wrong,“ Zients told the court. He said Zuckerberg was a “driving force” as chief executive for the company and “it was important he continued in that role.”
A group of Meta shareholders, mostly union pension funds, allege Zuckerberg and former Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg ran the company as an illegal data harvesting operation and the board completely ignored their duty to oversee top management.
The case was brought following revelations that data from millions of Facebook users was accessed by Cambridge Analytica, a now-defunct political consulting firm that worked for Donald Trump's successful U.S. presidential campaign in 2016.
A lawyer for the defendants, who have denied the allegations, declined to comment.
McCormick, the judge who last year rescinded Elon Musk's $56 billion Tesla pay package, is expected to rule on liability and damages months after the trial concludes.
But under cross-examination, Richards acknowledged that he could not say if the company had violated the 2012 agreement with the FTC -- a central claim to the case.
The lawsuit is considered the first of its kind to go to trial that alleges that board members consciously failed to oversee their company. Known as a Caremark claim, such lawsuits are often described as the hardest to prove in Delaware corporate law.
Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital fund co-founded by Andreessen, said this month it was reincorporating in Nevada from Delaware and encouraged other companies to do the same. The company cited the uncertainty of the state's courts and referenced the Musk pay ruling.
Andreessen is expected to testify on Thursday - REUTERS
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