Elon Musk has sued the prestigious law firm Wachtel, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to recover most of its $90 million (roughly Rs. 743 crores) fees. Twitter For thwarting his bid to buy the social media company for $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,37,465 crores).
The complaint from Musk’s X Corp, which owns Twitter, was filed on Wednesday in California Superior Court in San Francisco.
Musk accused Watchtel of exploiting Twitter by admitting to closing the buyout in the final days before October 27, 2022, a hefty “success” fee was paid to Twitter executives, who were grateful that Musk was forced to close. will be forced.
The richest man in the world who also runs Tesla And spacexcalled the $90 million payment “unconscionable”, noting that Wachtel had billed less than a third of that amount for his few months’ work on the Delaware lawsuit.
“While the keys were being handed over to Musk, Wachtel arranged to effectively line his own pockets with money from the company’s cash registers,” the complaint states.
Musk is seeking to recover “excess” fees that Wachtel took under a settlement signed by Vijaya Gadde, one of its partners, and Twitter’s chief legal officer on the day of closing.
The complaint also cited former Twitter director Martha Lane Fox, who upon learning how much the lawyers would be paid, emailed general counsel Sean Edgett: “Oh my freaking god.”
Wachtel did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Gadde, Fox and Edgett are not parties to the suit.
Twitter has been involved in several actual or threatened lawsuits since its purchase of Musk.
These include multiple lawsuits by landlords, vendors and consultants accusing Musk of rigging bills, and a threatened lawsuit by Twitter against Mark Zuckerberg. meta platform on the new of the latter threads Application.
Wachtel is not new to being sued by billionaires over buyouts, having spent years in litigation with Carl Icahn over its hostile takeover of CVR Energy in 2012.
In 2018, a judge dismissed a malpractice claim by Icahn, which found itself in a bind to pay banks that helped defend CVR against higher fees from the acquisition than it would have if the merger failed.
The case is X Corp. v. Wachtel, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, California Superior Court, County of San Francisco, No. CGC-23-607461.
© Thomson Reuters 2023