Twitter Inc began making its case on Tuesday for a September trial over its lawsuit seeking to hold Elon Musk to his $44 billion takeover, saying the uncertainty caused by Musk's attempt to walk away was harming the company.
"The continued uncertainty inflicts harm to Twitter
every hour of every day, said William Savitt, an attorney for Twitter, at the
hearing that was being conducted remotely after the judge, Chancellor Kathaleen
McCormick, tested positive on Monday for COVID-19.
The San Francisco-based company is seeking to resolve months
of uncertainty for its business as Musk tries to walk away from the deal over
what he says are Twitter's "spam" accounts that he says are
fundamental to its value.
Twitter has asked McCormick of Delaware's Court of Chancery
to find Musk breached the merger agreement and to order him to complete the
merger at the agreed price of $54.20 per share.
Twitter wants an expedited trial in September because it
said Musk is smearing Twitter and undermining operations by refusing to approve
business initiatives, such as an employee retention plan.
The company said adopting Musk's "slow walk"
proposal for a February trial leaves little time for additional litigation over
deal financing if Musk is ordered to close. The deal financing expires in
April.
A lawyer for Musk blamed Twitter for dragging its feet in
responding to Musk's requests for information regarding the methods for
calculating the number of spam accounts and he said an expedited trial will
prevent the truth from coming to light.
"When Mr. Musk started asking questions, the answers he
got were alarming," said Andrew Rossman, Musk's lawyer. He said it will
take months to analyze massive amounts of data to resolve Musk's questions
about Twitter's spam accounts.
Rossman also pushed back on the notion that Musk was trying
to harm Twitter, pointing out the billionaire held a larger stake than the
combined holdings of the directors of Twitter.
Twitter's stock has slumped from above $50 a share when the
deal was announced to as low as $32.55 last week.
It was trading around $39.16 on Tuesday morning, up about 2%
and near the highest level since Musk said he was walking away.
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