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ARTICLE · 13 MARCH 2013

Claims By Alleged Developers Of The Huffington Post Permitted To Proceed

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In Daou v. Huffington, a case strikingly similar to the Facebook lawsuit popularized in The Social Network, the Supreme Court ruled that political consultants Peter Daou and James Boyce could proceed on the majority of their claims asserting that Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and TheHuffingtonPost.com stole Plaintiffs.

United StatesLitigation, Mediation & Arbitration
Brian Garrett
Brian Garrett
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In Daou v. Huffington, No. 651997/2010 (N.Y. Sup. Ct., N.Y. Cnty. Feb. 14, 2013)—a case strikingly similar to the Facebook lawsuit popularized in The Social Network—the Supreme Court (J. Ramos) ruled that political consultants Peter Daou and James Boyce (collectively "Plaintiffs") could proceed on the majority of their claims asserting that Arianna Huffington ("Huffington"), Kenneth Lerer ("Lerer"), and TheHuffingtonPost.com (the "Huffington Post," and collectively "Defendants") stole Plaintiffs' idea regarding the creation of the Huffington Post. The decision revives Plaintiffs' suit, which seemed all but dead a year ago.

Plaintiffs' claims arose from failed negotiations between the parties in 2004 to develop the now-famous news website and blog. Plaintiffs contend that they developed and proposed the idea for the website to Huffington and Lerer. Plaintiffs further asserted that Huffington intentionally led them to believe that the parties had established a joint

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