Man Claiming Half of Facebook Suffers Setbacks

itwbennett writes "Slashdot readers will remember Paul Ceglia, the man who says Mark Zuckerberg agreed to split Facebook with him and has the email to prove it. Well, his case took a turn for the worse this week. Two law firms representing him resigned, the judge refused to postpone a hearing to allow his new lawyers to get caught up, and the judge ordered him to turn over computers and electronic and paper evidence."

Electronic contracts

[Compaqt]

>Last I checked, emails weren't legally binding, as a contract is

Check again.

Congress passed the ESIGN act [wikipedia.org] to prevent people from repudiating contracts that were made electronically. That was the foundation of the e-commerce boom (otherwise, how would you expect companies to sell on the Internet when people could just say "Oh, that wasn't a real contract, it was just electronic.")

Btw, a contract doesn't need to even be written to be a contract. The written form helps in establishing what was contracted, though.

A contract requires an offer, an acceptance, and consideration (exchange of value).

If you hash out terms for a business deal over email, and at the end you accept it, you just made a contract.