Battered survey firm to dissolve

British company files bankruptcy

NEW YORK — Jennifer and Rebekah Mercer, daughters of Republican mega-donor Robert Mercer, are liquidating Cambridge Analytica, the troubled data collection agency that worked for President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign and caused a global Facebook privacy scandal in recent months.

The British firm filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection late Thursday in New York.

The Mercer sisters, who are majority shareholders of Cambridge Analytica, bought their father’s stake in the pro-Trump website Breitbart News in late 2017.

Cambridge Analytica has come under scrutiny for possible links to the federal probe into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 president election and fallen into the cross hairs of special counsel Robert Mueller.

The American bankruptcy case could shed light on some of the company’s relationships and finances, as U.S. legal proceedings are more transparent than those in the U.K., and creditors can use bankruptcy law to subpoena information and investigate asset transfers.

The data collection agency filed papers to begin insolvency proceedings in the U.K. earlier this month. At the time, it blamed “unfairly

negative media coverage” and said it had been “vilified” for actions it said were both legal and widely accepted as part of online advertising.

Cambridge Analytica said in a May 2 statement on its website that it lost “virtually all” customers and suppliers as a result of reports that it improperly obtained information from tens of millions of Facebook Inc. users.

Cambridge Analytica has insisted that none of the Facebook data it acquired from an academic researcher was used in the Trump campaign. The company was able to amass the database quickly with the help of an app that purported to be a personality test. The app collected data on tens of millions of people and their Facebook friends, even those who did not download the app themselves.

Facebook has since tightened its privacy restrictions, and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress in two days of hearings. Facebook also has suspended other companies for using similar tactics. One is Cubeyou, which makes personality quizzes.