Delaware Business Litigation Report

Court of Chancery Tackles Contested Advancement Issue

Martinez v. Regions Financial Corporation, C.A. 4128-VCP (September 9, 2009).

There is a recurring problem of what is the Court to do when the parties fight over the reasonableness of fees requested in an advancement case.  As the fee requests are recurring, the Court has made it clear it does not want to be put in the role of monitoring play in the sandbox every month.  In the past, the Court has appointed a special master as in Duthie v. CorSolutions Medical Inc., C.A. 3048-VCP (September 10, 2008).  That approach has its own problems, as under Delaware law the decisions of a master are reviewable de novo by the Court.

The solution to this problem adopted by this decision is to have the parties submit any disputed bills to the court who will then rule on the dispute in a teleconference.  See the order attached. While the Vice Chancellor involved in this case is the most patient of men, he will need some good luck with this process.

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