With Facebook Inc. preparing for what could be the largest Internet IPO in history, the last thing founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg needed was a lawsuit from a man claiming to own 50 percent of the company.
Attorneys for Zuckerberg filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit on March 27, calling Paul Ceglia”™s claims “fraudulent” and presenting evidence that the supposed contract between Ceglia and Zuckerberg was a fake.
News coverage of the developments largely omitted, however, that electronic data analysis and recovery firm Stroz Friedberg L.L.C. ”“ which opened a new office in Purchase on March 5 ”“ was responsible for the findings.
With an estimated 90 percent of corporate data being stored electronically on servers, hard drives, and even smart phones and tablet devices, companies are increasingly calling on Stroz Friedberg for its investigative expertise.
“At the core, we”™re an investigative shop. Our DNA is investigations in the technology realm,” said Executive Managing Director John F. Curran.
Founded in 2001, Stroz Friedberg is headquartered in New York City and works in the areas of digital forensics, business intelligence and investigations, cyber-crime and data breach response, security risk consulting, and electronic discovery.
Stroz Friedberg, in other words, is capable of gathering, sorting through, analyzing and packaging a company”™s electronic data, with past clients including Google Inc., American Express Co., and the U.S. Justice Department.
The bulk of the company”™s electronic discovery unit will be based at its new, 8,000-square-foot office in Purchase, where Stroz Friedberg recently signed a five-year lease.
The unit had been based in Westport, Conn., since the March 2008 acquisition of the e-discovery technology solutions platform Docuity Inc.
Stroz Friedberg also plans to relocate its current U.S. data center and servers from Westport to an undisclosed Westchester location this summer.
The e-discovery unit is primarily concerned with gathering information for both government and corporate clients in relation to corporate investigations and criminal and civil litigation.
“We help law firms and corporate clients manage the acquisition of that data,” Curran said.
There are currently 35 to 40 employees working at the Purchase office, with space for an additional 30 workers ”“ giving the company room to grow, said Managing Director Barbara Dunn.
“From what we”™ve seen, the growth has just been extraordinary,” she said, noting that the legal cases Stroz Friedberg typically consults on are becoming increasingly complex.
Since its inception, the company as a whole has seen annual revenue increases of 25 to 35 percent, while the e-discovery unit has posted annual growth of more than 100 percent since its acquisition.
SIDEBAR: Westchester unemployment rises
Unemployment in Westchester County in February was unchanged from January at 7.4 percent, according to data released April 3 by the state Labor Department. The rate was up, however, from 7.3 percent in February 2011.
The number of unemployed Westchester residents increased slightly over the past year, and Labor Department analyst John Nelson said Westchester still ranks among the strongest labor markets in the state.
“I think overall you”™re still seeing some good economic expansion and good overall job expansion in this region,” he said, adding that “one month”™s data does not make a trend.”
Nelson said he expects the employment situation in the lower Hudson Valley to improve as the year goes on.
The private sector added 4,800 jobs over the past year in Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties, representing annual growth of 1.1 percent.
The strongest industries included financial services, professional and business services, and education and health services, which grew by 4 percent, 6.4 percent, and 2.7 percent, respectively. Those gains were offset by cuts in construction, manufacturing, leisure and hospitality, and government.
