It’s hard to overstate the stakes for the lawyers who persuaded a Delaware judge to void Tesla founder’s Elon Musk‘s $56 billion pay package. The size of the legal fee they are requesting is undoubtedly vast: more than 29 million Tesla shares, valued at $7.74 billion as of Thursday morning. Tesla is asking instead for a fee award as low as $13.6 million for the plaintiff’s lawyers at Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann, Andrews & Springer, and Friedman Oster & Tejtel.
The requested fees at their current value, if awarded, would amount to more than $390,000 for every hour worked by the 37 lawyers, associates and paralegals who litigated the case on behalf of Richard Tornetta, a former heavy metal drummer who owned just nine Tesla shares when he sued.
Read more about the fee fight.
Legal Fee tracker is a new weekly feature with Reuters’ David Thomas following the money paid out to law firms. See you next week!
Read last week’s here.
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The 3rd Circuit ruled on Tuesday that the SEC cannot sidestep the stringent, four-part test for obtaining a preliminary injunction when it seeks to freeze the assets of a defendant in an enforcement action. Its decision explicitly rejects 2nd Circuit precedent that requires the SEC only to establish an inference that a defendant violated federal securities laws in order to freeze the target’s assets. Alison Frankel explains why the circuits split — and why the 3rd Circuit decision is the latest example of a court refusing to give special treatment to federal agencies.
Check out other recent pieces from our columnists: Alison Frankel and Jenna Greene
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