Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and a group of current and former directors have reached a settlement in an $8 billion shareholder lawsuit over repeated violations of Facebook users’ privacy.

The agreement was announced Thursday in Delaware’s Court of Chancery, moments before the trial was set to continue into its second day.

The lawsuit, brought by Meta shareholders, accused Zuckerberg, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, former COO Sheryl Sandberg, and others of failing to enforce a 2012 agreement with the Federal Trade Commission to protect user data. That failure led to a $5 billion fine by the FTC in 2019. Plaintiffs had hoped to hold the 11 defendants personally liable for those losses.

While details of the settlement remain confidential, the agreement spares Zuckerberg, Sandberg, and Andreessen from testifying under oath. The trial was expected to run through the following week and include testimony from other high-profile former board members, such as Peter Thiel and Reed Hastings.

The case was the first to bring Caremark oversight claims—among the most difficult under Delaware law—against a major tech company’s board. Although a rare trial was underway, even a successful ruling for plaintiffs would likely have faced appeal.

Critics say the settlement avoids public accountability. Jason Kint, CEO of Digital Content Next, called it “a missed opportunity” to confront Meta’s business model of “surveillance capitalism.”

Meta, formerly Facebook, was not a defendant and declined to comment. The company maintains it has invested billions since 2019 to improve privacy protections.

The lawsuit followed the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where millions of Facebook users’ data was misused for political targeting during the 2016 U.S. election. The settlement ends the case without a definitive ruling on Meta’s leadership accountability.