Twitter sues Elon Musk, rival litigator among Sidley accusers, Biden's 5 new judicial nominees & Denton's fight with ex-partner ??
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???Good morning. Twitter?escalates its legal battle with?Elon Musk, a BakerHostetler?attorney is among the Texas state legislators threatening disbarment for lawyers that help with abortion access, Republican abortion opponent Chad Meredith is?not among Biden's new judicial nominees and Dentons claims a recent Supreme Court ruling dooms ex-partner?in their bitter fight. Here is today's Legal File ??
Twitter sued Elon Musk for violating his $44 billion deal to buy the social media platform and asked the Delaware Chancery Court to order the world's richest person to complete the merger at the agreed $54.20 per Twitter share.
A complaint filed by attorneys for the social media giant, including?Bill Savitt?at?Wachtell, Brad Sorrells?at?Wilson Sonsini?and?Peter Walsh Jr.?at?Potter Anderson & Corroon, said:
"Musk apparently believes that he - unlike every other party subject to Delaware contract law - is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away."
On Friday, Musk said he was terminating the deal because Twitter violated the agreement by failing to respond to requests for information regarding fake or spam accounts on the platform, which is fundamental to its business performance.
In a letter sent to Musk, dated Sunday and filed with regulators on Monday, Twitter said it had not breached its obligations under the merger agreement as indicated by Musk.
Texas State Representative Cody Vasut, who is "of counsel" in the Houston office of law firm BakerHostetler,?is also one of 11 state lawmakers in the Texas Freedom Caucus that last week?accused?Sidley Austin of appearing to be "complicit in illegal abortions" is an attorney employed by another major U.S. law firm.
The caucus said in a?July 7 letter?to Sidley that the Chicago-based firm "may have aided or abetted drug-induced abortions" in violation of Texas law and warned it to preserve any relevant records in anticipation of being sued.
BakerHostetler told Reuters on Tuesday that Vasut's political activity was unconnected to the firm. The firm chairman Paul Schmidt said:
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“His affiliation with the Texas Freedom Caucus is in a personal capacity and solely related to his legislative role.”
Other major law firms with Texas offices such as Vinson & Elkins and McDermott Will & Emery are also offering staff abortion travel benefits, Reuters has?reported.
President Joe Biden nominated five new federal judges, but did not at this time move forward with a plan opposed by a growing number of Democrats and progressives to appoint Republican abortion opponent Chad Meredith to a judgeship in Kentucky.
The latest nominees include Cindy Chung, a prosecutor Biden previously picked to serve as the U.S. attorney for Pittsburgh and is now seeking to make the first Asian American ever on the Philadelphia-based the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Biden also named four nominees for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, including state court judges Mia Perez and Kai Scott, in Philadelphia who previously worked as public defenders representing indigent defendants. The other two nominees are Kelley Hodge, a partner at the law firm Fox Rothschild, and John Murphy, a partner at Baker & Hostetler.
The international firm?Dentons?is in the midst of one of the most procedurally complex fights in memory with ex-partner?Jinshu “John” Zhang, who was fired in 2021 after a showdown over a multimillion-dollar contingency fee. The case has ping-ponged from emergency arbitration to litigation in California and New York, with a last-minute reprieve for Zhang from the?California Supreme Court.
Alison Frankel’s?latest column?details new filings from both sides to an intermediate California appeals court weighing Zhang’s contention that only California can decide if he was an employee of the firm, despite his equity partner status. Dentons, Frankel says, is playing the?U.S. Supreme Court’s?June ruling in?Viking River v. Moriana?as a trump card.
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?? That's all for today! Thank you for reading?The Legal File!
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