Delaware Business Now
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Citizens for a Pro-Business Delaware is criticizing a decision by newly sworn-in Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick over billing for services related to the sale of TransPerfect.
Lawyers for TransPerfect Global have requested a change on Chancery Court Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick’s decision regarding Skadden Arps’ past billing practices.
TransPerfect has asked for more detail on billing practices from the Chancery Court-appointed custodian of the company, Robert Pincus, a former Skadden Arps partner, after being billed more than $44 million the past years.
A letter to McCormick stated that “Pincus’s gamesmanship and bill churning continues with these motions and refusal to engage in discussions towards compromise solutions to outstanding issues… Encouraging and rewarding motion practice and scorched-earth tactics over compromise is the antithesis of judicial efficiency and has an antithetical result.”
After seven years of multi-jurisdictional litigation stemming from an irreconcilable deadlock among the three stockholders of a profitable company, TransPerfect Global, Inc. (“TransPerfect”), the Court of Chancery discharged the court-appointed custodian of TransPerfect and denied a motion for contempt and sanctions against TransPerfect and its owner Philip Shawe. The Court subsequently granted the custodian’s fee petitions in the amount of approximately $3.2 million.
The Court adopted the discharge order proposed by the custodian, with modifications, and with the hope of bringing closure in the wake of numerous collateral litigations. The Court’s modifications specified that only the custodian, and not his attorneys, could direct post-discharge payments from escrow, deleted certain language in the proposed order that could be construed as expanding pre-existing protections for the custodian and his counsel, and clarified the process for the custodian to submit future fee pe
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Retiring Del. Chancellor Makes TransPerfect Pay $3.2M In Fees
Law360 (May 3, 2021, 4:12 PM EDT) Comparing his effort to cleaning up a mess made by pizza thrown at a wall, Delaware s seemingly exasperated outgoing chancellor ordered TransPerfect Global Inc. and its co-founder to pay $3.2 million in fees to a court-appointed custodian who spent years mired in legal fights over the company s sale.
Retiring Delaware Chancellor Andre G. Bouchard, in one of his last acts before stepping down, ordered global translation company TransPerfect and co-founder Philip Shawe to pay custodian Robert B. Pincus fees and expenses totaling more than $3.2 million in a caustic opinion issued Friday.
April 30
th marks a special day for some. For those of you who are aware, I have covered the case of TransPerfect in Delaware for years now, and to this day, it remains the longest-running case in the Delaware Chancery Court. The story is a bizarre tale of what seemed to be a simple corporate break up between two owners, but in essence, has become an example of government overreach, lackluster oversight of the courts and brazen abuse of power to enrich friends of the various insiders within the Delaware system.
So why is today, April 30
th special? The employees and leadership of the world’s largest translation, language services and e-discovery companies, TransPerfect Global, with 6500 employees in over 100 offices, including the Israeli division called, Milim near Tel Aviv, are celebrating the last day of Delaware’s Chancellor Andre Bouchard’s time on the bench. He resigned with more than five years left on his term. He didn’t talk about his reasons, but court offi
Delaware Business Now
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The owner of TransPerfect said a federal court decision marked a victory in a suit against Chancellor Andre Bouchard.
A Delaware U.S. District Court ruling stopped short of intervening in the suit filed by TransPerfect owner Philip Shawe.
In another development, Bouchard issued a discharge order for the custodian appointed to supervise the sale of the company.
“We consider the ruling a victory in that the Federal Court found Chancellor Bouchard ordered TransPerfect to pay ‘$44 million in undocumented fees’ to his former law firm. It also put Bouchard and the Chancery Court on notice, which will help prevent future violations of civil rights,” TransPerfect owner Shawe said.