Legal claims served over Facebook

9 News reports.

The Judicial Office for England and Wales said justice Nigel Teare had agreed to the use of the popular social networking site to serve a claim in a commercial dispute.

Teare permitted the unconventional method of service during a pre-trial hearing into a case, which pits two investment managers against a brokerage firm they accuse of overcharging them, Thestar.com writes.

A former trader and an ex-broker, Fabio De Biase and Anjam Ahmad, are also alleged to have been in on the scam.

The office had few other details of the case, but said it is thought to be the first time lawyers had sought to use Facebook in this manner, News24 reveals.

Ordinarily, British legal claims are served in hard copy, although unconventional means are occasionally employed if the people involved are hard to pin down.