You’ve got to hand it to Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis. They braved not one but at least two high-risk court actions to wrestle back the phone app they created seven years ago - and it’s they who emerge as winners from riday’s settlement.

The entrepreneurs - one Swedish, one Danish - have not only secured themselves a 14 percent place back at the Skype table; they have also kicked Index Ventures, the heavyweight European tech VC firm the pair had been suing and which was part of the consortium that successfully bid for Skype in September, off the team.

And, eBay (NSDQ: EBAY) tells paidContent:UK, despite giving over to Skype part of the P2P invention that has made them famous, Zennström and Friis retain the right to use it for for other ventures. Here’s how they pulled it off…

In the right hands, Skype may yet prove enormously lucrative, as telecom networks continue going digital. Having sold to eBay in 2005, Zennström and Friis began their quest to regain the phone app earlier this year, when eBay, thinkin