The first female chief judge on Delaware’s nationally recognized business court will look over Twitter Inc’s lawsuit that wants to hold Elon Musk to his commitment to buy that platform for $44 billion, as per the court records.
Kathaleen McCormick had the part of chancellor /chief judge the previous year after the retirement of Andre Bouchard on the Court of Chancery, a preferred venue for massive corporate disputes.
Among McCormick’s first decisions will be a proposal by Twitter to seize a four-day trial in September, which is an extremely tight time frame for a complicated case like this.
Twitter accused Musk of a lengthy list of breaches of the merger agreement in the lawsuit that was filed on Tuesday.
It said the “world’s richest man wanted to back out in part because of a downturn in the stock of Tesla Inc, the electric vehicle maker where he is chief executive.”
Musk also charged Twitter for breaching the merger agreement since it refused to share information on spam accounts, created misunderstandings, and strayed from its regular course of business by firing executives.
“The court has capacious powers to enforce its orders,” announced Francis Pileggi, an attorney with Lewis Brisbois in Wilmington, Delaware.
If Musk goes on to resist a judgment, the court will have to order Tesla and other Delaware-incorporated companies in which Musk holds a stake to freeze his possession or turn over shares.
“He’d be treated like a deadbeat dad not paying child support,” said Minor Myers, a professor at UConn School of Law. “It would not be that hard.”
