Twitter's legal battle with Elon Musk is off to a strong start in the social media company's favour, CBC reports. Earlier today (July 19) the Delaware Court of Chancery declared that the impending trial will take place by October, despite the billionaire and his legal team's attempt to have it pushed until 2023.
Presiding Judge Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick shared the ruling, noting that the 10th month of this year would be "the latest" we'll see things unfold.
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Initially, Twitter requested that the trial begin as soon as September with no more than four days to argue. Musk's lawyers, on the other hand, pushed for February or even later, also asking for the court to grant each side a number of weeks to present their cases; it was argued that an expedited trial wouldn't allow for the truth of the "spam bot issue" on Twitter to truly be discussed.
Ultimately, though, Judge McCormick decided that only five days will be needed for arguments – a timeframe much closer to the one that the app asked for.
As you likely already know, Twitter and Musk are going to court over their $44B deal in which the Tesla CEO was set to become the new owner of the platform, though he eventually lost interest.
The father of 10 shared that he walked away due to the seller's failure to provide accurate information about fake account statistics, also claiming that they "breached obligations under the deal by firing top managers and laying off a significant number of employees."
For their part, Twitter believes that Musk has acted insincerely from the start, and may have even only shown interest in the massive purchase as part of a publicity stunt. "It's attempted sabotage. He's doing his best to run Twitter down," attorney William Savitt informed the judge.
The 51-year-old's lawyer, Andrew Rossman, says these claims are "preposterous" as his client is the second largest shareholder, meaning he owns even more than the company's board does. "He has no interest in damaging the company," Rossman confirmed.
When forming their original deal, both Musk and Twitter agreed to pay a $1B breaker fee to the other should anyone decide to pull out, but that seems irrelevant now as they're suing one another for far more than that.
As CBC notes, Twitter's request for a quick trial has to do with the company's stock price, which is being impacted by the uncertainty and messiness of the deal.
"The reality is, delay threatens irreparable harm to the sellers," the judge said; tap back in with HNHH later for any updates.
[Via]