• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, February 9, 2023

A federal judge has ordered Meta Platforms and its outside law firm, Gibson Dunn, to pay nearly $1 million for “using delay, misdirection, and frivolous arguments to make litigation unfairly difficult and expensive” for consumers who brought a class-action lawsuit against the company over data transfers to Cambridge Analytica and other developers.

“The court finds by clear and convincing evidence that Facebook and Gibson Dunn’s conduct reflected a sustained, concerted, bad-faith effort to throw obstacle after obstacle in front of the plaintiffs -- all in an attempt to push the plaintiffs into settling the case for less than they would have gotten otherwise,” U.S. District Court Judge Vince Chhabria said in an order issued Thursday.

“Unfortunately, this sort of conduct is not uncommon in our court system. But it was unusually egregious and persistent here,” Chhabria wrote in his 53-page ruling.

For example, Chhabria wrote, Facebook “insisted” that it didn't need to disclose what information it had collected about consumers unless it had shared that data with outside parties, and also said the plaintiffs had to accept the company's assertions about what data was shared.

“Merely reciting this argument shows how ridiculous it is, but Facebook and Gibson Dunn repeated it over, and over, and over again -- despite the presiding magistrate judge telling them many times that it made no sense,” Chhabria wrote.

“It’s almost as if Facebook and Gibson Dunn spent the better part of three years trying to gaslight their opponents, not to mention the court,” Chhabria wrote.

The ruling comes in a lawsuit dating to 2018 over allegations that Meta violated users' privacy by sharing their information with outside developers, including the defunct political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.

Meta recently agreed to settle the privacy claims for $725 million.

Chhabria's new ruling requires Facebook and Gibson Dunn to pay the plaintiffs around $925,000 within 21 days.

“To be sure, this amount is loose change for a company like Facebook, and even for a law firm like Gibson Dunn,” he wrote. “But it’s important for courts to help protect litigants from suffering financial harm as a result of their opponents’ litigation misconduct.”