Australian resources mining billionaire Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest is taking Meta (formerly Facebook) to court alleging the social media giant breached local money-laundering laws by failing to prevent false cryptocurrency advertisements on its platform.
Fast facts
- In legal proceedings lodged in the Western Australia Magistrates Court, Forrest alleges Meta “failed to create controls or a corporate culture to prevent its systems being used to commit crime.”
- Forrest claims the social media giant was “criminally reckless” by repeatedly failing to take down posts that used his image to promote cryptocurrency scams.
- Meta and Google last year conceded to new local legislation that mandated the tech giants to pay news producers to host content on their platforms after the pair initially threatened to leave the market.
- An initial hearing will be held on March 28, and the billionaire said he has also launched civil proceedings against the company in California last year.