The Supreme Court has decided to allow a multibillion-dollar investor class action against Facebook’s parent company, Meta, related to the Cambridge Analytica privacy scandal to proceed.

The big picture: Meta had tried to drop the lawsuit arguing that the case should not have been taken up by the court. However, the Supreme Court rejected Meta’s appeal and upheld an appellate order allowing the class action to proceed.

• Investors claim that Meta failed to disclose the risks associated with the misuse of Facebook users’ personal information by Cambridge Analytica, which supported Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Driving the news: In 2018, revelations about the privacy scandal caused two significant price falls in Meta’s shares, according to investors who argue that insufficient disclosures contributed to those falls.

• Meta had previously paid $5.1 billion in fines and reached a $725 million privacy settlement with users as part of their response to the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
• Cambridge Analytica, with ties to Trump political strategist Steve Bannon, obtained personal information from about 87 million Facebook users through a Facebook app developer. This data was then used to target American voters during the 2016 campaign.