Kevin LaCroix at D & O Diary has an interesting post covering public comments by Delaware Chancery judge Leo Strine. Many of the comments are focused on d & o claims, but others are broader, such as his comments on attorney’s fee awards and the prospects for mischief created by state courts competing for litigation. Key excerpts follow on those topics.
"In response to a question, Strine discussed the massive fee award he granted to the plaintiffs’ attorneys’ in the Southern Peru case. As discussed here, that case had resulted in an award of $1.263 billion, which with interest, approach nearly $2 billion. Strine awarded fees of $285 million, which he defended saying, the only reason the plaintiffs received the massive judgment in the case was the efforts of the plaintiffs’ lawyers. He said that he has much more trouble with cases like the disclosure-only merger objection suit settlement, where the plaintiffs’ lawyers wind up walking away with a $400,000 fee award. … The real problem is not a case where plaintiffs’ attorneys produce real value. If the plaintiffs has “delivered something really beneficial, they should be rewarded accordingly.” Rather, the problem is that there are too many incentives for plaintiffs’ attorneys to bring suits where the only beneficiaries are the attorneys. We have, Strine said, an “excess of litigation” that “has no meaningful societal benefit.” Strine commented that the extra costs associated with this litigation have caused the cost of capital for American companies to rise."
"Strine rejected the suggestion that the Delaware courts might be managing fee awards because of a competition from other states’ courts. Strine stressed that Delaware’s courts are not “trying to attract litigation.” Just the same, he took care to question the effort of other states to try to develop specialized business courts. You can, he said, file suits in “goofy place” and what you will wind up with is corporate law that is “junk.” The movement to form specialized business courts has been “problematic” because all too often those courts have “become places where you can forum shop.” His view is that all courts, by their own account are “overburdened.” That being the case, Strine contends, the each court should “stay in its own lane.” When something is appropriately “in someone else’s lane, then let them do it.”"
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