Record Legal Fee Request
Tom Borman, LawFuel Contributing Editor
We reported recently on a record-breaking ‘first’ billion dollar legal fee in the Elon Musk executive compensation case – but away under-estimated – with the fee looking at several billion more.
The lawyers who successfully challenged Elon Musk’s $56 billion compensation package as excessive are now seeking a legal fee of $6 billion, to be paid in Tesla shares, according to court documents filed on Friday.
In the filing made to the Delaware Court of Chancery, three law firms acknowledged that the amount requested was unprecedented, equivalent to $288.888 per hour.
The rationale behind the substantial fee lies in the lawyers contending that Tesla, the electric vehicle manufacturer, directly benefited from the reinstatement of Elon Musk’s stock options.
The legal team estimates that Musk’s pay package, contested by Tesla shareholder Richard Tornetta in 2018 and annulled by a Delaware judge in January, will result in the return of 266 million shares to the carmaker.
The legal team in defending the high fee emphasized that it is linked directly to the award.
