The social media giant said the developers - Hong Kong-basd LionMobi and Singapore's JediMobi - made apps available on the Google Play store "to infect their users’ phones with malware".

In a statement on its website, the company said the malware created fake user clicks on Facebook ads that appeared on the users’ phones "giving the impression that the users had clicked on the ads".

The firm said the lawsuit is "one of the first of its kind against this practice".