Kathaleen McCormick, a Delaware judge, played a key role in compelling Elon Musk to complete the Twitter deal and ruling against him in a Tesla shareholder lawsuit.
Musk’s attempt to relocate Tesla’s incorporation to Texas faces challenges.
“Never incorporate your company in the state of Delaware,” Musk wrote on X.
“The reason Elon Musk frequently escapes account from other judges is because they don’t see through his phantabulating,” Chancery Daily editor Lauren Pringle said. “They get wrapped up and starstruck. Not McCormick. She is clear-eyed as ever, and willing to take the slings and arrows that she knows will come with making a tough ruling.”
McCormick’s tough stance against Musk highlights her influence in corporate litigation.
Despite Musk’s efforts to challenge Delaware’s legal system, experts believe the state’s expertise and predictability will likely deter mass migration of firms.
“I don’t see it getting serious traction,” Widener University Delaware Law School professor emeritus Lawrence Hamermesh said. “He’s sort of a one-off.”
“One description is they sell corporate law as a product,” New York University law professor Edward Rock said. “They market it, they care about it, they keep it up to date.”
“You do public interest law, and you actually have real people whose future depends on what the court does,” Rock said. “When you’ve dealt with real problems like that, there’s a sense, it seems to me, that you’re not intimidated by the kind of things that corporate litigators fight about.”
“Investors in Delaware companies should be cheering this result and insisting that companies incorporate and stay incorporated in Delaware,” co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs Greg Varallo said. “Because the court has shown once again that it is there to protect investors against overreaching controllers.”
“I don’t expect a mass migration of firms from Delaware,” University of Virginia law professor Michal Barzuza said.
Most Popular:
FBI Informant Who Criticized Biden Gets Bad News
Drag Queen Principal Learns His Fate Amid Controversy
