OPINION

Dear friends,

I’ve spent years watching and writing about former Delaware Chancellor Andre Bouchard who, in my view, operated with one appearance of impropriety after another — especially in the notorious, still-ongoing TransPerfect case. Now, new Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick appears to be taking the court in the wrong direction by making a too-swift decision to deny TransPerfect due process and approve Skadden’s past billing practices in the case.

I had high hopes that McCormick would steer the Chancery in a better direction, but this shoddy, hasty decision, as I see it, folks, suggests otherwise. McCormick isn’t any better than her predecessor Bouchard in granting this motion to Skadden’s Robert Pincus’ incessant billing, in which Skadden billed more than $44 million in “undocumented fees and costs” over the past several years, as you’ll see from the story below.

We need to be done with the old “Delaware Way” cronyism and McCormick needs to bring transparency to her Court of Chancery. I will continue watching and reporting on any and all inequities that I observe in the Court. Will McCormick do the right thing? As always your comments are welcome and appreciated.

Sincerely yours,

Judson Bennett

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210628005494/en/Citizens-for-a-Pro-Business-Delaware-Slams-Ongoing-Cronyism-of-Chancery-Court-Under-New-Chancellor-McCormick

Citizens for a Pro-Business Delaware Slams Ongoing Cronyism of Chancery Court Under New Chancellor McCormick
A History of ruling without due process breeds mistrust and injustice in courts

June 28, 2021 09:12 AM Eastern Daylight Time
WILMINGTON, Del.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Recently, lawyers for TransPerfect Global requested an alteration on new Chancery Court Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick’s swift decision to deny due process and grant Skadden Arps’ motion approving of their past billing practices. For years, TransPerfect has asked for transparency in billing practices bythe Chancery Court-appointed Custodian of the company, Skadden Arps’ Robert Pincus, after having been billed more than $44 million in “undocumented fees and costs” over the past several years.

The request also identified four different federal cases, which TransPerfect or its affiliates had to file to, and urged Chancellor McCormick, who replaced outgoing Chancellor Andre Bouchard, to bring transparency, efficiency and fairness to the proceedings. The letter to Chancellor McCormick wrote 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.”

Said Chris Coffey, Campaign Manager of Citizens for a Pro-Business Delaware: “TransPerfect employees created Citizens so that other workers would not have to experience the fear of having their livelihoods in the hands of an opaque and out-of-touch Chancery Court. With the appointment of Chancellor McCormick, we have renewed hope that the Court will move away from the backdoor dealings that defined the Bouchard era, but this ruling does the opposite. Instead of more transparency, Chancellor McCormick is doubling down on the old way of doing business in Delaware. We need a change – we won’t stop our fight until Chancellor McCormick, and all justices on the Chancery Court, commit to real transparency that will restore public trust in our courts.”