Six years ago, a young man named Sammy Wasem decided to start a fan page to display his love for Ferrari. Little did he know that the page would become one of the most popular car sites on Facebook, and that he would be facing a legal battle with the luxury car brand.

In March 2009, Ferarri sent a congratulatory email to Wasem for gaining more than 500,000 fans within a year of creating the fan page. They also mentioned that they would be taking over the formal administration of the fan page because of legal issues.

Wasem agreed to make the site the official fan page for Ferrari in return of financial compensation to help fund his budding racing career. This continued for four years. Wasem claims his role was eventually replaced by other managers, before he subsequently lost all administration rights to the page.

In February 2013, Wasem filed a civil lawsuit claiming compensation for at least 10 million Swiss francs ($11 million) for more than 5,500 hours of work. It will be a challenging case, given that the terms which were agreed on were not written down in an official contract.

[Bloomberg]