Twitter scored a hit in its ongoing feud with Tesla founder Elon Musk when Delaware judge Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick declared that the lawsuit needed to go on a five-day trial, tentatively scheduled for October of this year.
McCormick decided at the end of the first hearing of Twitter’s lawsuit against Musk over the latter’s $44 billion acquisition of the social media network. Twitter filed the suit a week before, following Musk’s announcement that he wanted to terminate the deal, asking the court to help expedite the proceedings.
The company also asked for a four-day trial in September, a motion vetoed by Musk’s legal counsel.
Musk Told to Honor Contractual Obligations
According to Twitter’s lead legal counsel William Savitt, Musk’s dilly-dallying over the deal and contemptuous disparagement are harming the social media company daily.
Savitt has referred to Musk’s behavior as a form of corporate sabotage and declared that the mogul remains contractually obligated to close the Twitter deal at all costs.
However, Musk’s lawyer Andrew Rossman shot back that his client has no incentives to leave the deal hanging and reminded Savitt that Musk is still one of Twitter’s biggest shareholders. Rossman also reminded his counterpart that Musk has not been sued over “perceived” breaches of the agreement and that Twitter was being unreasonable.
Musk’s legal team has also called Twitter’s request for a trial an extreme way of expediting the situation, claiming that, as the dispute is fact and expert intensive, it will take a significant amount of time for discovery. They added that the original drop-dead date slated for October 24th would not apply if either party filed litigation over the deal. In this case, Twitter’s request should be considered moot, and a ten-day-long trial should be set for February next year.
However, the Twitter legal team has refuted the opposition’s claims regarding the length of the discovery process , as it is not expected to run for several months. In addition, Savitt declared that nothing in the merger agreement is related to how many false accounts may be on Twitter and that Musk could have done his own due diligence regarding the matter. However, it appears that neither he nor his team did anything to that effect before signing the agreement.
In a letter addressed to the court, Twitter also reiterated its commitment to closing the merger based on the price and terms agreed upon with Musk in the original agreement.
