Lars writes
In December 2022 I filed a Private Criminal Prosecution against Mark Zuckerberg for Aiding and Abetting Aggravated Fraud.
This is a criminal offense in Sweden, and the jurisdiction is that Meta Platforms Inc. (the parent to Facebook and Instagram) have their global server facility up in the North of Sweden, serving more than one billion Facebook users – and my argument is that this is the place where Facebook users are connected to the advertisers, and the scene of the crime.
Zuckerberg is the CEO of Meta, and as such responsible for the day-to-day operation, and in the same manner as a bank CEO is prosecuted for being involved in money laundering, he is the person responsible for what is happening on his platforms.
The (Swedish) district court approved the lawsuit, and used a special clause indicating that is a case is very unique and because of needs to set new precedents they have decided to move the case up one step in the hierarchy of the Swedish court system – to what is called the Crown Court. This decision was made in the end of January 2023
In the case against Zuckerberg I had a deadline on the 21:st of February 2023 to file additional arguments and documents to the Crown Court.
Zuckerberg had his deadline on the 28:th of February (as I have explained, the process is very straight forward, and speedy with very short deadlines, and almost no possibility to stall or delay).
What the Crown Court first has to decide is if they are going to handle the case, and set a trial day, or if they also want to use the same exemption as the district court did, and move the case up to the Supreme Court.
It has now 4 weeks after Zuckerberg’s deadline to appeal for a dismiss of the case. In normal cases the decision from the court comes after 2-3 weeks after the final deadline. Quite often the court clerk who handles and prepares the case has contact with the parties to have some clarification, or request for additional paperwork or information. That happens often very fast within a week or so.
The case handler then prepares the case to be put in front of the Judges – who is this case are three professional Judges.
These judges decide on how to process the case, and makes what is called Decisions. This is how the case should be trialed and some of the case administration. This is the decision I’m waiting for.
As a thumbs rule, my experience is that the longer it takes for the judges to make the initial decision, the better for the plaintiff/prosecutor – a dismiss is far easier to make than a approval. This is still no indication of the final outcome – but you are beginning on the plus-side.
In the Zuckerberg Case I have also brought in some decisions about court proceedings that could be a question for setting new precedents, and it was my tactics to add them also to make the case even more interesting for the Crown Court to judge in my favor of them handling the case.
Currently I do not know if Zuckerberg has been informed about what happened in the District Court, and that his case was moved up, and he had a deadline on the 28:th.
The court has no obligation to officially serve him – just send the relevant information to the company official business address. It is up to him to arrange for receiving official mail by post.
Due to the time that has now gone since the 28:th, i can only presume that he has received the papers and that he has contacted a Swedish Law Firm to represent him, and that this Law Firm has requested an extension on the reply time. I will not be informed about that until there is a reply for this Law Firm to the court.
In Sweden the courts are not allowed to give extension more than three weeks and only two extensions.
If Zuckerberg has hired a Swedish Lawyer – that is positive for us. Then I will know exactly how to handle that lawyer / firm .
Further updates to come as soon as i receive the relevant information from the court.
