(San Francisco) Lawyers for Twitter and Elon Musk debated on Tuesday the elements to be provided by each of the parties, three weeks before an unprecedented trial on the proposed takeover of the network at 44 billion dollars.
Posted at 6:07 p.m.
“Let’s skip the rhetoric and get to the heart of the matter,” exclaimed US judge Kathaleen McCormick, after more than three hours of argument during the preliminary hearing organized via Zoom.
Lawyers for the world’s richest man have again called for access to more data on inauthentic or scam accounts, at the heart of their client’s case for backing out of acquiring the platform.
On the other hand, they believe that Twitter is asking them for too much information about their exchanges with Peiter Zatko, the social network’s former security chief turned whistleblower, who this summer accused his former company of having concealed computer vulnerabilities and lied on its fight against fake accounts.
At the beginning of July, the San Francisco-based group launched legal proceedings against Elon Musk, to force him to honor the acquisition contract signed at the end of April.
According to the board of directors, the proportion of unsolicited messages on the platform is a pretext put forward by the businessman, who would have changed his mind when he saw the value of companies falling on the stock market in recent months.
Lawyers for Twitter on Tuesday denied abusing solicitor-client privilege to withhold certain documents.
They are to question Elon Musk in a closed-door deposition that has been rescheduled for October 6-7, according to multiple news reports.
The trial is due to open on October 17 in a specialized court in the state of Delaware (east coast of the United States), and last five days.
The market has long given the advantage to Twitter, the law of Delaware being a priori favorable to the respect of contracts. And the president of the court, Kathaleen McCormick, granted the company a speedy trial, while the multi-billionaire wanted to wait until next year and demanded astronomical amounts of data.
But the whistleblower’s surprise intervention added a dimension to the case, since the judge allowed Elon Musk to include the new charges in his arguments.
The court battle could result in “a settlement, payment of breach of contract fees, an obligation to take over Twitter as planned and a myriad of other outcomes,” Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities said in a note Tuesday.
The analyst also continues to believe “possible that the parties negotiate behind the scenes”.