LON­DON-Sta­tus up­date: You're sued. Le­gal au­thor­i­ties said yes­ter­day that a High Court judge in Eng­land has ap­proved the use of Face­book to serve le­gal claims. Lawyers in a com­mer­cial dis­pute were last week grant­ed per­mis­sion to serve a suit against a de­fen­dant via the pop­u­lar so­cial net­work­ing site. Jus­tice Nigel Teare per­mit­ted the un­con­ven­tion­al method of ser­vice dur­ing a pre­tri­al hear­ing in­to a case which pits two in­vest­ment man­agers against a bro­ker­age firm they ac­cuse of over­charg­ing them.

A for­mer trad­er and an ex-bro­ker, Fabio De Bi­ase and An­jam Ah­mad, are al­so al­leged to have been in on the scam. Jen­ni Jenk­ins, who rep­re­sents Ah­mad, said lawyers in the case had been try­ing to track De Bi­ase in or­der to serve him with le­gal doc­u­ments. She said that a copy of the suit was left at his last known ad­dress, but that it wasn't clear whether he was still liv­ing there. The lawyers didn't have his e-mail ad­dress, so they ap­plied for per­mis­sion to send him the claim through Face­book.

Jenk­ins, an as­so­ciate with Lon­don-based law firm Memery Crys­tal, said the lawyers were con­fi­dent that de Bi­ase's ac­count was still ac­tive. De Bi­ase was giv­en ex­tra time to re­spond to the claim.

AP