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Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio.

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Speaker 1: The Supreme Court decided unanimously in favor of Donald Trump

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Speaker 1: on Monday, ruling that states can't kick him off the

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Speaker 1: presidential ballot using Section three of the fourteenth Amendment, the

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Speaker 1: provision barring insurrectionists from holding office. Trump thanked the Court.

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Speaker 2: They worked long, they worked hard, and frankly, they worked

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Speaker 2: very quickly on something that will be spoken about one

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Speaker 2: hundred years from now and two hundred years from now

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Speaker 2: extremely important.

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Speaker 1: The unsigned procureum opinion mirrored the concerns expressed by the

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Speaker 1: justices during oral arguments about state by state determinations of

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Speaker 1: the disqualification of a federal candidate. Here's Justice Elena Kagan.

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Speaker 3: I think that the question that you have to confront

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Speaker 3: is why a single state should decide who got to

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Speaker 3: be president of the United States. In other words, you know,

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Speaker 3: this question of whether a former president is disqualified for

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Speaker 3: insurrection to be president again is just say it. It

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Speaker 3: sounds awfully national.

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Speaker 1: On the surface, the court was unanimous, but just below

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Speaker 1: the surface there was plenty of division. The three liberal

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Speaker 1: justices wrote a bitter concurring opinion which reads more like

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Speaker 1: a dissent, saying the five conservatives had gone too far

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Speaker 1: in the opinion when they said that legislation was required

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Speaker 1: to implement Section three, and even Conservative Justice Amy Cony

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Speaker 1: Barrett agreed with the liberals, but wrote her own more

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Speaker 1: restrained concurrence. Joining me is Jessica Levinson, a professor at

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Speaker 1: Loyola Law School and host of the Passing Judgment podcast.

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Speaker 1: Jessica explained the basics of the procuring opinion.

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Speaker 4: The top line here is that nine of the justices

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Speaker 4: agreed that when it comes to a state, they do

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Speaker 4: not have the power under section three of the fourteenth

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Speaker 4: Amendment for federal officials, particularly for the president, to say

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Speaker 4: that they're disqualified for office having been previously serving in government,

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Speaker 4: engaging an insurrection, and then trying to once again serve

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Speaker 4: in government.

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Speaker 1: The three liberal justices, in their concurrence, which read like

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Speaker 1: a dissent, said that the five conservatives in the majority

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Speaker 1: went too far. Quote they decide novel constitutional questions to

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Speaker 1: insulate this court and petitioner that's Trump from future controversy.

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Speaker 1: What's their real concern there?

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Speaker 4: So I think what the concurrence, which really does read

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Speaker 4: more like a descent is concerned about is one that

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Speaker 4: the Court answered a question that wasn't asked. That they said,

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Speaker 4: not only can a state not by itself say that

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Speaker 4: there's a federal candidate whose ineligible profice under Section three

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Speaker 4: of the fourteenth Amendments, but here's who can. It's just

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Speaker 4: Congress and it's just through a certain type of legislation.

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Speaker 4: And so the first problem the Concurrence has, it's this

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Speaker 4: idea that in fact, the procureum and as they phrase it,

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Speaker 4: the majority is just going too far and they're answering

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Speaker 4: a question that they didn't need to, and that that

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Speaker 4: violates the principle of judicial restraint. And then the second

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Speaker 4: thing they're saying about insulating, and I think this wasn't clear,

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Speaker 4: and I wish they had just said what they mean.

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Speaker 4: But I suspect what they mean is that by the

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Speaker 4: majority saying here's the way that you enforced Section three,

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Speaker 4: it's congressional legislation narrowly tailored that is specifically aimed at

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Speaker 4: the issue that the Constitution lays out. That what they're

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Speaker 4: saying is does that mean then if Donald Trump, for instance,

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Speaker 4: was to win the election and then Congress was to

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Speaker 4: try not to certify under a different statute under the

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Speaker 4: Electoral count Act. Would Congress then lack the power to

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Speaker 4: do that under this majority opinion?

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Speaker 1: And during the oral arguments, the lawyer for the Colorado

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Speaker 1: voters had said that a rule requiring Congressional action to

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Speaker 1: implement Section three could leave the door open to a

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Speaker 1: renewed fight over trying to use the provision to disqualify

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Speaker 1: Trump in the event that he wins the election. So

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Speaker 1: those five conservatives knew what they were doing.

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Speaker 4: I think the Conservatives did know what they were doing.

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Speaker 4: This was discussed in oral arguments. I think that there's

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Speaker 4: a question as to whether or not it's appropriate or

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Speaker 4: not for the procureum to have gone further than just

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Speaker 4: Colorado lacks this power. But it certainly is the case

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Speaker 4: that there was a conversation about whether or not a

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Speaker 4: specific type of judicial decision would just take the can

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Speaker 4: down the road. And I think that's what the concurrence

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Speaker 4: by the liberals is really arguing her this, which is

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Speaker 4: you're just pushing off some big and complicated questions until later,

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Speaker 4: and specifically those big questions, you're actually tilting the scale

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Speaker 4: in favor of saying that Congress would laugh the power

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Speaker 4: to take any action outside of a new piece of legislation,

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Speaker 4: and that that's helpful not just for Trump but for

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Speaker 4: the Court itself in avoiding future controversy.

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Speaker 1: There was obviously a push to speak with one voice

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Speaker 1: on this critical issue. But if this were a different,

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Speaker 1: let's say, low profile case, these concurrences would probably be dissents.

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Speaker 1: So was this really a unanimous decision or was it

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Speaker 1: just dressed up to look like one.

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Speaker 4: It really was a unanimous decision that was deeply fractured

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Speaker 4: on everything else other than the one line of the outcome.

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Speaker 4: So on the one hand, you can see that there's

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Speaker 4: this enormous pressure because of the case with huge political

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Speaker 4: consequences and huge consequences on an issue that really divides

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Speaker 4: our country, that the court not look like they're policy makers.

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Speaker 4: So the court look like they are judges, They are

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Speaker 4: resolving disputes, they are not putting their thumb on the

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Speaker 4: scale of an election. And so I think that's how

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Speaker 4: we do get to that one line saying, based on federalism,

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Speaker 4: based on all of these concerns about patchworks and chaos,

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Speaker 4: we're going to say Colorado when outside of its power.

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Speaker 5: But then the.

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Speaker 4: Agreement dissipates, and that's where we lose all consensus, and

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Speaker 4: that's where you have the majority, I think taking a

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Speaker 4: very different stancing. And here's exactly how you apply Section

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Speaker 4: three and the concurrence saying, why are you going so far?

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Speaker 4: And you're doing this in a way that not just

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Speaker 4: avoids judicial restraints, but you're kind of hipping the scales

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Speaker 4: in favor of somebody like the former president.

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Speaker 1: Justice Barrett, in her separate, more temperate concurrence wrote that

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Speaker 1: with a politically charged issue like this, writings from the

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Speaker 1: court should turn the national temperature down, not up, but

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Speaker 1: then goes on to say, well, the main message is

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Speaker 1: we all agreed, right.

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Speaker 4: And I think this is an understandable message by Justice

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Speaker 4: Barrett because she's very cognizant in the pact that she

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Speaker 4: doesn't want this to be a Bush be Gore reduct

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Speaker 4: where it looks like by a thinly divided court divided

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Speaker 4: along ideological lines of who appointed the justices did they

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Speaker 4: make a decision that has huge effects on the presidential election.

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Speaker 4: So what she's saying is he understands the concern that

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Speaker 4: the majority went too far, but she wishes that I

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Speaker 4: think the dissent excuse me. The Freudian slip with the

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Speaker 4: Concurrence hadn't use such strident language. And I wonder if

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Speaker 4: there was some world in which the liberals actually could

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Speaker 4: have gotten Justice Barrett to sign on, if the tenor

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Speaker 4: of the Concurrence had maybe been slightly different.

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Speaker 1: Well, Barrett hasn't been sitting in those liberal seats for years,

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Speaker 1: particularly Sona so To Mayor, and you know, probably building

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Speaker 1: up a lot of frustration dealing with the super conservative majority.

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Speaker 1: Is Barrett on a sort of a mission because she

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Speaker 1: appeared with Sonya so To Mayor at the National Conference

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Speaker 1: of Governors to say, there are not Republican judges or

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Speaker 1: democratic judges. We all wear black robes, not red, not blue.

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Speaker 1: Is she on a mission that you usually see the

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Speaker 1: Chief on.

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Speaker 4: I think that it's Justice Barrett, it's Justice Sonya Soto Mayor,

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Speaker 4: who's also spoken warmly about Justice Clarence Thomas. It's the

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Speaker 4: Chief Justice, it's Elena Kagan, all of whom have said

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Speaker 4: some version of please know that we're judges, not politics

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Speaker 4: and rogues. And of course they need that right. The

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Speaker 4: Supreme Court depends on our respect and it depends on

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Speaker 4: us viewing them as something different from just political actors

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Speaker 4: because ultimately they get their power from us. Saying that

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Speaker 4: they have that power, I mean they don't have an

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Speaker 4: army to send in, they don't have a group of

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Speaker 4: police officers to send in to enforce their opinions. They

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Speaker 4: have the power of the pen. And if we ignore that,

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Speaker 4: then we have a real problem with our third branch.

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Speaker 1: So they don't want to be seen as political actors.

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Speaker 1: They want to be seen as judges. Yet in the

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Speaker 1: space of five days, they gave Trump this outright victory

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Speaker 1: in Colorado and an indirect victory by keeping his criminal

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Speaker 1: trial over election interference on hold while they decide whether

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Speaker 1: he has presidential immunity from prosecution, which may mean probably

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Speaker 1: will mean that he won't be tried in the election

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Speaker 1: interference case before the November How is that not political?

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Speaker 4: I think what the justices would say is we decided

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Speaker 4: to take this case because we decide big constitutional questions

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Speaker 4: that are matters of first impression, and this is a

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Speaker 4: big constitutional question that we've never confronted before. And they

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Speaker 4: might also say Jaxsonith came to us in December and

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Speaker 4: asked us to set this for arguments in March. We

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Speaker 4: instead said, you don't get to jump the line, and

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Speaker 4: we set arguments for the end of April. Now is

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Speaker 4: the end of April quite different in fact when it

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Speaker 4: comes to the court calendar and the electoral calendar than

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Speaker 4: the beginning of March. Of course it is. But they

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Speaker 4: might say it's not our responsibility to make sure the

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Speaker 4: case can occur before the election. Now, on the other hand,

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Speaker 4: of course, one would say, well, are they actually unnecessarily

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Speaker 4: delaying things by setting this particular pace. But I think

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Speaker 4: the justices would say, actually, we're moving for us quite quickly.

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Speaker 1: Well, they set it for the last possible day they

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Speaker 1: could for all arguments.

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Speaker 4: And what we do need to think about is that

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Speaker 4: we could get a decision that isn't just an up

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Speaker 4: or down. It's not just there is absolute immunity or

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Speaker 4: there isn't. We could get a decision that says, for instance,

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Speaker 4: there is qualified immunity and send the case back to

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Speaker 4: Judge Chuck in the trial court judge in the DC

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Speaker 4: case and tell her to apply that standard. That could

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Speaker 4: also present a delay. There's also another question looming in

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Speaker 4: an unrelated case before the Supreme Court, dealing with whether

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Speaker 4: or not the Federal Statute that Trump is charged under

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Speaker 4: at least for I think half of the charges, whether

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Speaker 4: or not that's appropriate to use in this type of case,

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Speaker 4: and that similarly could have delayed this trial.

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Speaker 1: Well, the delay strategy is certainly working for Trump. Thanks

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Speaker 1: so much, Jessica. That's Professor Jessica Elevenson of Loyola Law

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Speaker 1: School coming up. The Eleventh Circuit stops part of Florida

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Speaker 1: Stop Woke Act. I'm June Gross when you're listening to Bloomberg.

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Speaker 6: We fight the woke and the legislatures. We fight the

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Speaker 6: woke and the schools. We fight the woke and the corporations.

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Speaker 6: We refuse to surrender to the woke mob. This state

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Speaker 6: is where woke goes to die.

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Speaker 1: Or maybe not, despite what Governor Ron DeSantis says over

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Speaker 1: and over, Actually it's the courts in Florida where his

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Speaker 1: anti woke laws go to die. Many of his most

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Speaker 1: controversial laws have faced legal roadblocks. The latest is his

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Speaker 1: ban on so called woke company training, which restricts how

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Speaker 1: private employers can train their workers. On Monday, the conservative

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Speaker 1: Eleventh Circuit unanimously blocked that ban as unconstitutional for committing

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Speaker 1: quote the greatest First Amendment sin penalizing speech based on viewpoints.

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Speaker 1: Joining me is leading First Amendment scholar Eugene Volik, a

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Speaker 1: professor at UCLA Law School. Eugene, can you tell us

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Speaker 1: what this particular Kuler anti woke law is about?

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Speaker 7: Sure? So this case involves a particular portion of the

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Speaker 7: Florida law that's called sometimes the Stop Woke Act. Doesn't

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Speaker 7: deal with other portions having to do, for example, with

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Speaker 7: colleges and universities and the like, has to do with

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Speaker 7: its restriction on employers, including private employers, and that restriction

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Speaker 7: prohibits employers from subjecting people as condition of employment to training,

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Speaker 7: instruction or other such activities required activities that, among other things,

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Speaker 7: promote a certain set of beliefs. And those beliefs include

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Speaker 7: things like members of one race, color, sex, or national

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Speaker 7: origin are morally superior to others, or a person, by

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Speaker 7: virtue of his race or national origin is inherently racist, sexist,

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Speaker 7: or oppressive, or that a person's moral character or status

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Speaker 7: is privileged or oppressed is necessarily determined by race.

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Speaker 8: Color, sex, and the like.

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Speaker 7: So there's certain particular viewpoints that private employers are not

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Speaker 7: allowed to include or to teach as part of compelled

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Speaker 7: instruction for their employees.

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Speaker 1: I mean, is there any private employer teaching that one

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Speaker 1: race is superior to the other or any of the

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Speaker 1: other things.

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Speaker 7: I'm not sure about the superior, but my understanding is

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Speaker 7: that some suppose a diversity, equity and inclusion instruction does

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Speaker 7: talk about how well you know, white people are privileged

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Speaker 7: whereas non whites or especially blacks are oppressed, or that

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Speaker 7: whites are inherently racist and that whites should be viewed

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Speaker 7: as oppressors. There are other things the law also includes,

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Speaker 7: like that members of particular group cannot and should not

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Speaker 7: attempt to treat others without respect to race, color, sex,

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Speaker 7: or national origin. My understanding is that some forms of

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Speaker 7: instruction do indeed say, look, it's impossible for us to

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Speaker 7: be colorblind, either in general, or it's impossible for whites

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Speaker 7: to be colorblind. Another item that's covered by the law

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Speaker 7: is that they can't teach that a person bears responsibility

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Speaker 7: for or should be discriminated against because of actions committed

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Speaker 7: in the past by other members of the same that's

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Speaker 7: national origin and the like. Well there too. I think

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Speaker 7: some training do suggest that race based affirmative action is

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Speaker 7: justified because whites in the past have oppressed blacks, let's say,

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Speaker 7: and therefore there needs to be a compensatory preferential treatment

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Speaker 7: and discrimination. Now, because of that, the.

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Speaker 1: Opponents of the law suit over its effects on free speech,

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Speaker 1: so basically just saying it was a free speech violation.

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Speaker 7: Yes, that's right. And in particular they said, look, this

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Speaker 7: law is viewpoint based. It doesn't just, for example, prohibit

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Speaker 7: employers from having mandatory education sessions that talk about politics

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Speaker 7: of any sort. Rather, it singles out particular viewpoints as

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Speaker 7: being prohibited in these kinds of education programs. And the

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Speaker 7: court says that viewpoint discrimination is the hardest to justify,

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Speaker 7: most likely unconstitutional form of speech restriction, and that the

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Speaker 7: law indeed unconstitutionally discriminated based on viewpoint and the Eleventh

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Speaker 7: Circuit panel agreed.

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Speaker 1: Florida argued that it was regularly the employer's conduct, not speech,

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Speaker 1: and the court said, we reject this latest attempt to

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Speaker 1: control speech by recharacterizing it as conduct. Does that happen

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Speaker 1: often as a defense in these cases saying it's conduct?

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Speaker 7: Yeah, I think the government often tries to do this sometimes.

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Speaker 7: For example, laws that ban sexual orientation change therapy for

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Speaker 7: children have been justified as bans on conduct, even when

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Speaker 7: the therapy involved only basically speaking to the person roles

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Speaker 7: and administering drugs and the like. Likewise, some other laws

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Speaker 7: that ban suppose that cyber stalking, but cyberstalking in the

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Speaker 7: form of unwanted speech about a person. There's sometimes are

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Speaker 7: laws or injunctions that say, look, stop talking about this

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Speaker 7: person have been justified as restrictions on conduct. But the

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Speaker 7: court here says that's not going to fly, because the

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Speaker 7: only conduct here is conveying certain viewpoints. If, for example,

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Speaker 7: the law said, well you can or require people to

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Speaker 7: be at work before eight am, let's say, well, okay,

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Speaker 7: that would not be a speak restriction, I'll be a

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Speaker 7: conduct restriction. Various kinds of laws regulating the employment relationship

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Speaker 7: or conduct restrictions. Well, with the law says, look, these

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Speaker 7: are particular ideas, particular opinions. You cannot teach people. Well,

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Speaker 7: that's all about the speech, all about what the employer's communicating,

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Speaker 7: and thereforets a speech restriction.

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Speaker 1: Did anything in particular in the opinion stand out to.

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Speaker 7: You, Well, I think it was a pretty forceful repudiation

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Speaker 7: of this kind of viewpoint discriminations. I will say there

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Speaker 7: was one thing in particular that might be relevant for

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Speaker 7: future cases. One thing that Florida said in defense of

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Speaker 7: the lawyer said, look, there are all all of these

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Speaker 7: rulings about hostile work environments, supposed racial harassment, where employers

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Speaker 7: can be hell liable for racially offensive or sexually or

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Speaker 7: religiously offensive speech even by their employee and especially by

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Speaker 7: the employer itself. So there have been lawsuits, for example,

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Speaker 7: over people playing offensive and supposedly misagynistic perhaps even actually

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Speaker 7: misagionistic grap lyrics, or claims that it was racial harassment

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Speaker 7: for people to say things that are potentially racist, even

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Speaker 7: if they're kind of political expression. So Florida's argument was, look,

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Speaker 7: it's established that it's okay to restrict that kind of speech. Well,

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Speaker 7: we want to restrict speech that may create a racially

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Speaker 7: hostile environment through these forms of mandatory training. And the

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Speaker 7: court said, well, you know, Title seven is different part

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Speaker 7: of this broader anti discrimination law. But beyond that, even

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Speaker 7: Title seven, even these can racial harassment and sexual harassment principles,

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Speaker 7: they are valid concerns about how they collide with the

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Speaker 7: First Amendment, and that courts therefore must exercise special caution

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Speaker 7: when applying Title seven to matters involving traditionally protected areas

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Speaker 7: of speech. So I do think that might be helpful

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Speaker 7: for the future when it's sort of anti woke or

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Speaker 7: non woke, each that leads to a lawsuits, This may

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Speaker 7: well be cited to say that, well, you know that

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Speaker 7: is protected by the First Amendment, then the government can

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Speaker 7: impose liability for.

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Speaker 1: So did the court use the highest standard of review,

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Speaker 1: strict right?

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Speaker 7: So the court said, look, this is content discrimination, but

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Speaker 7: even worse, it's a viewpoint discrimination. Viewpoint discrimination is generally unconstitutional.

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Speaker 7: You know, maybe it might be constitutional if it passes

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Speaker 7: this exacting standard of strict scrutiny. But it is rare

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Speaker 7: that a regulation restriction speech even because of its content,

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Speaker 7: much less that its viewpoint will ever be permissible, the

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Speaker 7: court was saying. And the Court said, in this case,

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Speaker 7: you know, it doesn't pass strict scrutiny. There's no compelling

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Speaker 7: government interest in suppressing this kind of speech.

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Speaker 1: The press secretary for DeSantis said they're reviewing all options

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Speaker 1: for a potential appeal. One of those options would be

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court. Do you think the Supreme Court would

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Speaker 1: want to weigh in on.

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Speaker 7: A case like this, You know, it's possible Supreme Court

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Speaker 7: does take a considerable number First Amendment cases because thinks

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Speaker 7: that's First Amendment the rules are particularly important. I think

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Speaker 7: it's pretty unlikely, just because even in cases where a

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Speaker 7: state challenges of finding that a law is unconstitutional, the

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Speaker 7: Court's usually prefers to wait until there's a split of

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Speaker 7: authority in lower courts. Circuit split where say the Eleventh

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Speaker 7: Circuit strikes down some law and say the Eighth Circuit

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Speaker 7: upholds a similar law where it uses some legal analysis

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Speaker 7: as inconsistent with the Eleventh Circuit's decision. That's sort of

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Speaker 7: a signal to the court there is an important issue.

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Speaker 7: It's likely to recur lower courts are in disagreement, usually

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Speaker 7: when there's kind of a one off state law in

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Speaker 7: which there aren't really a lot of others like it,

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Speaker 7: and certainly no appellate decisions dealing with it. When that

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Speaker 7: gets struck down, that usually doesn't lead the Supreme Court review.

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Speaker 7: But it's possible.

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Speaker 1: I mean, how big a victory is this for free

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Speaker 1: speech coming from a conservative appellate court. Noteworthy?

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Speaker 7: Yeah, it is noteworthy because it's a reminder that First

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Speaker 7: Amendment provides very strong protection against viewpoint discrimination by the government,

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Speaker 7: and that applies again whether it's discrimination against woke viewpoints

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Speaker 7: or against anti woke viewpoints. They're generally speaking, the government

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Speaker 7: cannot restrict speech it states on viewpoint, even when the

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Speaker 7: viewpoints has to do it with highly controversial matters such

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Speaker 7: as race and sex and national origin, and even when

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Speaker 7: the viewpoints are offensive to many.

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much for your insights, Eugene. As always, that's

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Speaker 1: Professor Eugene Vollik of UCLA Law School. Now some other

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Speaker 1: legal news. Sam Bankman freed Remember him. His spectacular fall

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Speaker 1: from grace and trial for masterminding a multi billion dollar

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Speaker 1: fraud kept him in the headlines for months, But since

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Speaker 1: his conviction last November, things have been quiet for SBF,

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Speaker 1: at least in the media. But behind the scenes, he's

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Speaker 1: been preparing for his sentencing and appeal, most notably by

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Speaker 1: shuffling lawyers and with help from his parents, flooding the

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Speaker 1: judge with letters pleading for leniency. Joining me is Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: Legal reporter Chris Domesh, who's read all the letters? Chris?

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Speaker 1: How long could the judge sentence him too?

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Speaker 5: Too? Obviously, there are a lot of factors that's play here,

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Speaker 5: given the seriousness of his conduct and the number of

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Speaker 5: charges he.

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Speaker 7: Was convicted of. But I talked to a lot of.

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Speaker 5: Defense attorneys about this, and he's going to get probably

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Speaker 5: at least a decade in prison, which is, you know,

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Speaker 5: a lot of time for a person of his age.

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Speaker 5: But it's kind of reasonable given what the sentence in

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Speaker 5: guidelines Paul for him to sturb, which is a life

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Speaker 5: sentence essentially, given the size of the loss in the case.

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Speaker 5: But anybody who follows the criminal justice system America, especially

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Speaker 5: the federal system, knows that white collar sentences, which are

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Speaker 5: driven by monetary losses, the proposed sentences under the guidelines

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Speaker 5: are really they're draconian. So twenty five years is probably

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Speaker 5: a little bit on the higher end. But the judge

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Speaker 5: himself in this case, ms Kaplan has issued skepticism about

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Speaker 5: the guidelines in the past, especially in white collar cases

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Speaker 5: where the lost amount is very high, And if you

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Speaker 5: look back at some of the cases that he sends,

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Speaker 5: he doesn't tend to throw.

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Speaker 8: The book at people.

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Speaker 5: He's obviously a tough judge, you know, he gave SDS

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Speaker 5: defense team a hard time during the trial, but he

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Speaker 5: seems to see sympathetic to the argument at very least,

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Speaker 5: that throwing him in prison for the rest of his

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Speaker 5: life is really not going to do society or him

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Speaker 5: any justice.

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Speaker 1: And he's gotten a new defense attorney, Mark mucasey.

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Speaker 5: Yes, Mark mccasey very well known in the Southern District

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Speaker 5: of New York. His father former US attorney, he's a

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Speaker 5: former federal prosecutor in the Southern District. He's represented many

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Speaker 5: a white collar clients. He's a passionate advocate for his clients.

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Speaker 1: He represented Nicola founder Trevor Milton, who was sentenced to

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Speaker 1: only four years in prison when the prosecutor is asked

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Speaker 1: for eleven years. So quite a difference. And here mucasey

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Speaker 1: is asking that SBF serve no more than six years.

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Speaker 1: That's on the very very low end, isn't it.

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Speaker 5: Yes, they couldn't have really logically argued for less.

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Speaker 8: And you know, their arguments are that.

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Speaker 5: Throwing him in prison for the rest of his life

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Speaker 5: doesn't really serve the purposes of justice, especially for somebody

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Speaker 5: who you know, despite the fact that you can kick

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Speaker 5: to tell h arguably has a lot to give in

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Speaker 5: terms of its contribution to society. And Marky Casey and

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Speaker 5: others have made this comparison to Michael Milkin, who you know,

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Speaker 5: is very young when he was convicted and managed to

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Speaker 5: build up a life of philanthropy, which is really what

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Speaker 5: FBS that they talk about in these letters, that he

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Speaker 5: has devoted to. That's the whole driving force of his life.

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Speaker 1: It's going to be interesting to see how much time

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Speaker 1: the prosecutors ask for. Thanks so much, Chris. That's Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: legal reporter Chrystal Mesh coming up a six billion dollar

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Speaker 1: legal bill and the Senator who likes to trip up

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Speaker 1: judicial nominees. I'm June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg.

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Speaker 3: The best things in life were free, but you can

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Speaker 3: give them to their beds and bees money.

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Speaker 1: Yes, they want money, six billion dollars of it. That's

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Speaker 1: how much the lawyers want for their services in getting

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Speaker 1: Elon Musk's fifty six billion dollar pay package thrown out.

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Speaker 1: Oh and they'll take those legal fees in Tesla stock please.

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Speaker 1: The irony is they argued that Musk's pay package was excessive,

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Speaker 1: and now they want their unprecedented six billion dollar legal

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Speaker 1: bill paid. And the kicker is that legal bill may

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Speaker 1: be payable in full under Delaware law. Joining me is

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Speaker 1: business law expert Eric Tally, a professor at Columbia Law School,

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Speaker 1: six billion dollars in legal fees. That would be an

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Speaker 1: hourly rate of two hundred eighty eight thousand, eight hundred

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Speaker 1: eighty eight dollars. I mean, where are they getting that from?

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Speaker 8: Well, once again, June, you and I have chosen the

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Speaker 8: wrong professions. That appears. So here's late, and I don't know,

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Speaker 8: it's never too late. One can always dream. But here's

436
00:26:07,480 --> 00:26:09,560
Speaker 8: where they're getting it from. First of all, realize that

437
00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:14,159
Speaker 8: the outcome of the case was phenomenally large as well, right,

438
00:26:14,280 --> 00:26:18,480
Speaker 8: fifty six billion dollars you know, in terms of compensation package,

439
00:26:18,760 --> 00:26:21,920
Speaker 8: that is essentially then being clawed back. And so the

440
00:26:22,040 --> 00:26:24,359
Speaker 8: way that this case gets set up, as well as

441
00:26:24,400 --> 00:26:27,560
Speaker 8: pretty much all shareholders litigation, is that it is brought

442
00:26:27,880 --> 00:26:30,439
Speaker 8: on a contingency fee basis, which means that the lawyers

443
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:33,840
Speaker 8: are going to basically self finance the entire action until

444
00:26:33,920 --> 00:26:35,880
Speaker 8: they get to the finish line of either a settlement

445
00:26:36,280 --> 00:26:39,399
Speaker 8: or in this case, a judgment and outcome. And only

446
00:26:39,560 --> 00:26:42,120
Speaker 8: then are they in a position where they can try

447
00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:46,400
Speaker 8: to petition the court for an award of attorneys fees.

448
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:49,120
Speaker 8: And so Essentially, you can almost think of the law

449
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:52,639
Speaker 8: firms that bring these actions as almost being like venture

450
00:26:52,680 --> 00:26:55,200
Speaker 8: capital funds, right, they invest in a bunch of different

451
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:58,480
Speaker 8: projects at different lawsuits. Many of them are going to

452
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:01,080
Speaker 8: be losers. Many of them are going to either settle

453
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:03,920
Speaker 8: for nothing or they'll just have to be dropped, and

454
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:05,960
Speaker 8: then other ones will pay off. So it's kind of

455
00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 8: a high risk, high reward thing. And so it is

456
00:27:09,400 --> 00:27:11,800
Speaker 8: often the case that when there is one of these

457
00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:15,760
Speaker 8: cases that ends up resulting in a substantial judgment that

458
00:27:15,840 --> 00:27:18,800
Speaker 8: can be monetized. In this one is one the contingency

459
00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:23,439
Speaker 8: fee looks in hindsight like an outrageous amount of hourly compensation,

460
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:25,840
Speaker 8: but one also has to think about how to set

461
00:27:25,920 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 8: that off against a bunch of other factors, including risk,

462
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:34,560
Speaker 8: including cost, including effort, including the hard aspects of bringing

463
00:27:34,640 --> 00:27:37,600
Speaker 8: a case of this type of complexity. And so when

464
00:27:37,640 --> 00:27:40,400
Speaker 8: you sort of back those out, most of the time

465
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:44,480
Speaker 8: these contingency fees end up looking a little bit smaller

466
00:27:44,640 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 8: on an hourly basis, because you've essentially had to control

467
00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:50,480
Speaker 8: for all the high probabilities that there were going to

468
00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:52,920
Speaker 8: be nothing at the end of the rainbow here. So

469
00:27:53,040 --> 00:27:56,359
Speaker 8: that's one of the factors that really controls in any

470
00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:59,920
Speaker 8: situation where there's a contingency fee award when it's not struck,

471
00:28:00,240 --> 00:28:02,919
Speaker 8: just an hourly rate. Pretty much all of these plaintive

472
00:28:02,960 --> 00:28:06,639
Speaker 8: shareholder litigation fees are based on some type of a

473
00:28:06,720 --> 00:28:07,760
Speaker 8: contingency arrangement.

474
00:28:08,080 --> 00:28:10,480
Speaker 1: I know, Delaware courts have allowed hundreds of millions of

475
00:28:10,600 --> 00:28:15,040
Speaker 1: dollars in legal fees in stockholder actions. How do they

476
00:28:15,080 --> 00:28:16,800
Speaker 1: assess these contingency fees?

477
00:28:17,680 --> 00:28:20,840
Speaker 8: Over the years, the courts have come up with sort

478
00:28:20,840 --> 00:28:24,280
Speaker 8: of a formula for thinking about when and under what

479
00:28:24,480 --> 00:28:28,360
Speaker 8: circumstances a contingency fee should be awarded, and how high

480
00:28:28,480 --> 00:28:32,200
Speaker 8: it should be, what percentage of the total award should

481
00:28:32,280 --> 00:28:35,800
Speaker 8: be paid over to the attorneys. And there you know,

482
00:28:35,920 --> 00:28:38,280
Speaker 8: there's a long standing line of cases, The most recent

483
00:28:38,360 --> 00:28:41,280
Speaker 8: ones are within the last couple of years that basically say, look,

484
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:43,800
Speaker 8: there's several factors that we look at. One of the

485
00:28:43,880 --> 00:28:46,560
Speaker 8: factors we look at is, you know, the value that

486
00:28:46,760 --> 00:28:49,480
Speaker 8: is created for shareholders. And you know, I guess one

487
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:51,680
Speaker 8: lens of this you could say, well, this was fifty

488
00:28:51,760 --> 00:28:54,240
Speaker 8: six billion dollars worth of value that was created to

489
00:28:54,320 --> 00:28:57,640
Speaker 8: shareholders because those Tesla shareholders were able to claw back

490
00:28:57,720 --> 00:29:00,880
Speaker 8: a fifty six billion dollar stock a wall payment that

491
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:02,640
Speaker 8: they would have had to share, and now they don't

492
00:29:02,680 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 8: have to share it. A couple of the other factors

493
00:29:04,560 --> 00:29:06,920
Speaker 8: that go into it is, you know, how risky was it,

494
00:29:07,280 --> 00:29:10,840
Speaker 8: how costly was it? What's the reputation of the firms

495
00:29:10,920 --> 00:29:13,080
Speaker 8: that are bringing this. Are they kind of ambulance chaser

496
00:29:13,160 --> 00:29:15,920
Speaker 8: type firms or they sophisticated sort of firms. The thing

497
00:29:15,960 --> 00:29:17,440
Speaker 8: that was kind of odd about this case is that

498
00:29:17,520 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 8: when you went down these factors, the factors all seemed

499
00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:25,160
Speaker 8: to point in the plaintiff's direction. Right, this was a

500
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:29,600
Speaker 8: fairly substantial award, It was risky, it was costly. Bernstein Lidwiz,

501
00:29:29,640 --> 00:29:31,760
Speaker 8: who has lead counsel on this, is one of probably

502
00:29:31,760 --> 00:29:35,959
Speaker 8: the most sophisticated and high reputation plaintiff firms in the country.

503
00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:38,720
Speaker 8: And so typically what that would mean is that when

504
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:41,400
Speaker 8: you get to the end of these factors, which the

505
00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:44,560
Speaker 8: petition for fees went through them one by one, if

506
00:29:44,600 --> 00:29:46,920
Speaker 8: you check all the boxes make it to the very

507
00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:50,680
Speaker 8: finish line, then the typical norm in Delaware is to

508
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:54,560
Speaker 8: award something like a third of the award the attorneys.

509
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:57,840
Speaker 8: Now that would have been about eighteen billion dollars, and

510
00:29:57,920 --> 00:30:00,360
Speaker 8: so I think that the attorneys in their draft this

511
00:30:00,440 --> 00:30:02,760
Speaker 8: sort of said, Okay, that's just a big number, and

512
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:04,920
Speaker 8: so they kind of make a point to saying, look,

513
00:30:04,920 --> 00:30:07,040
Speaker 8: we're going to articulate all these factors. We're going to

514
00:30:07,080 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 8: say that that under existing law would entitle us to

515
00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:12,320
Speaker 8: a third. We're going to take a third of a

516
00:30:12,440 --> 00:30:14,960
Speaker 8: third or eleven percent. And that's what they ended up

517
00:30:14,960 --> 00:30:17,520
Speaker 8: at their five point eight or five point nine billion

518
00:30:17,560 --> 00:30:18,400
Speaker 8: dollar request.

519
00:30:18,760 --> 00:30:23,080
Speaker 1: But does it not seem ironic that they argued that

520
00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:27,120
Speaker 1: Musk's pay package was excessive and now they want a

521
00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:29,120
Speaker 1: chunk of it also excessive.

522
00:30:29,600 --> 00:30:31,200
Speaker 8: Yeah, it's kind of an interesting thing. I mean, I

523
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:33,960
Speaker 8: guess you could run this in multiple directions.

524
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:34,160
Speaker 3: Right.

525
00:30:34,240 --> 00:30:37,920
Speaker 8: One is to say the pay package was so excessive

526
00:30:38,080 --> 00:30:41,160
Speaker 8: that when we prevailed. This is what the plaintiff attorneys

527
00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:44,080
Speaker 8: would argue that when we prevailed on having it nullified,

528
00:30:44,600 --> 00:30:48,560
Speaker 8: we created an excessive benefit to shareholders, that fifty six

529
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 8: billion dollar benefit. So had the pay package not been

530
00:30:52,280 --> 00:30:56,280
Speaker 8: as exorbitant, then our fee would not be as large.

531
00:30:56,520 --> 00:30:59,720
Speaker 8: And we are then once again doubling back and saying,

532
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:02,480
Speaker 8: and guess what, We're going to take only a third

533
00:31:02,840 --> 00:31:05,160
Speaker 8: of the feed that under the sort of a cookie

534
00:31:05,200 --> 00:31:08,800
Speaker 8: cutter approach, we would presumptively be entitled to the fact

535
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:10,640
Speaker 8: of the matter though, is you're right too, And this

536
00:31:10,880 --> 00:31:13,680
Speaker 8: is a gargantuan award. A lot of times you'll see

537
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:16,200
Speaker 8: big fights over attorney spees that are in the hundreds

538
00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:18,680
Speaker 8: of millions of dollars, you know, three hundred four hundred

539
00:31:18,720 --> 00:31:21,040
Speaker 8: million dollars. But one of the big challenges in this

540
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:24,320
Speaker 8: case is that the fifty six billion dollar award is

541
00:31:24,520 --> 00:31:27,480
Speaker 8: kind of the denominator against which all this other stuff

542
00:31:27,560 --> 00:31:29,760
Speaker 8: is measured, right, and we just haven't seen a fifty

543
00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:32,960
Speaker 8: six billion dollar award that has put itself in this

544
00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:35,000
Speaker 8: position where we're trying to figure out what's the value

545
00:31:35,040 --> 00:31:37,800
Speaker 8: of the attorney speed. And you know, there are cases

546
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:40,440
Speaker 8: recently that have tried to contend with this question of

547
00:31:40,560 --> 00:31:43,200
Speaker 8: you know, as the award gets bigger, should the percentage

548
00:31:43,280 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 8: go down? And the Delaware courts are generally resisted that

549
00:31:46,560 --> 00:31:50,160
Speaker 8: thus far, but that could factors into Chancellor McCormick's assessment

550
00:31:50,440 --> 00:31:51,520
Speaker 8: up the fee request.

551
00:31:51,800 --> 00:31:54,800
Speaker 1: Elon Musk may not be getting that fifty six billion

552
00:31:54,840 --> 00:31:58,720
Speaker 1: dollar pay package, but they have to redo his pay package, right,

553
00:31:59,200 --> 00:32:03,000
Speaker 1: So Tesla won't be keeping all of that fifty six billion.

554
00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:06,240
Speaker 8: Well, that I think really is the fifty six billion

555
00:32:06,280 --> 00:32:11,600
Speaker 8: dollar question too. The pay package itself was nullified, which

556
00:32:11,760 --> 00:32:16,280
Speaker 8: basically means that mister Musk was working, maybe not quite

557
00:32:16,360 --> 00:32:19,160
Speaker 8: for free, because remember he owned twenty two percent of

558
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:22,000
Speaker 8: the company, So any you know, ten billion dollar increase

559
00:32:22,120 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 8: in the value of the company is going to get

560
00:32:24,080 --> 00:32:26,479
Speaker 8: him two billion dollars worth of value that he has

561
00:32:26,560 --> 00:32:29,560
Speaker 8: already pocketed. But I think, you know, one could sort

562
00:32:29,560 --> 00:32:31,640
Speaker 8: of kick this case around and try to think where

563
00:32:31,640 --> 00:32:33,360
Speaker 8: are the ways that it might have come out differently.

564
00:32:33,440 --> 00:32:35,160
Speaker 8: I think one area that it might have come out

565
00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:38,560
Speaker 8: differently is exactly on this point about whether if the

566
00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 8: pay package is being nullified, does that mean that he's

567
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 8: entitled to nothing for the services that he provided to

568
00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 8: Tesla over these years under the presumption that he was

569
00:32:50,680 --> 00:32:54,160
Speaker 8: going to be paid from this executive compensation package. And

570
00:32:54,240 --> 00:32:56,640
Speaker 8: so that itself is a type of a claim that

571
00:32:56,720 --> 00:32:59,800
Speaker 8: you will often see in cases where a contract gets

572
00:32:59,840 --> 00:33:01,560
Speaker 8: no qualified to say, look, if you're not going to

573
00:33:01,680 --> 00:33:05,000
Speaker 8: let me collect pursuant to the contract, let me at

574
00:33:05,080 --> 00:33:08,240
Speaker 8: least make out a claim of what was the benefit

575
00:33:08,360 --> 00:33:11,400
Speaker 8: that I conferred on the other side, and we can

576
00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:13,920
Speaker 8: come up with the fair terms. And so that argument,

577
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:16,840
Speaker 8: for example, might end up culminating in a finding with

578
00:33:17,080 --> 00:33:20,320
Speaker 8: the fair value of what Musk created for Tesla was,

579
00:33:20,600 --> 00:33:23,840
Speaker 8: you know, thirty billion dollars or something like that, and

580
00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:26,320
Speaker 8: so that would then be kind of an offset that

581
00:33:26,400 --> 00:33:29,760
Speaker 8: you often will see in contrast cases. At the end,

582
00:33:30,080 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 8: this case was a little odd because you know, a

583
00:33:32,520 --> 00:33:35,160
Speaker 8: lot of the litigation gets compressed to a short amount

584
00:33:35,200 --> 00:33:37,280
Speaker 8: of time and people have to argue about all the

585
00:33:37,320 --> 00:33:40,040
Speaker 8: different parts of the case. And so the Tesla attorneys

586
00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:42,320
Speaker 8: in this case, mister Musk's attorneys in this case or

587
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:45,040
Speaker 8: sort of in an odd position of saying, hey, listen,

588
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:48,000
Speaker 8: this pay package is one hundred percent fair. You know,

589
00:33:48,080 --> 00:33:50,600
Speaker 8: it was highly incentivized, but that was exactly what the

590
00:33:50,680 --> 00:33:53,280
Speaker 8: design was, and look how well it paid off. It

591
00:33:53,320 --> 00:33:56,360
Speaker 8: would be hard at the same time to say, oh,

592
00:33:56,440 --> 00:33:58,680
Speaker 8: by the way, this was the fair and the unfair part. Right,

593
00:33:58,720 --> 00:34:00,480
Speaker 8: It's kind of hard to argue that the thing was

594
00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:04,040
Speaker 8: entirely fair, and at the same time you can distinguish

595
00:34:04,120 --> 00:34:06,000
Speaker 8: between the fair part and the unfair part. And so

596
00:34:06,080 --> 00:34:08,360
Speaker 8: I think the defense attorneys in this case sort of

597
00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:12,200
Speaker 8: understandably decided to make a strategic choice, but not even offering,

598
00:34:12,840 --> 00:34:16,399
Speaker 8: you know, some alternative valuation that's less than fifty six

599
00:34:16,480 --> 00:34:19,400
Speaker 8: billion dollars of what the fair value of mister Musk's

600
00:34:19,400 --> 00:34:22,680
Speaker 8: services was. But that ended up creating big problems for

601
00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:25,480
Speaker 8: them once liability was done, because there was no alternative

602
00:34:25,560 --> 00:34:28,160
Speaker 8: theory about what some sort of an offset should be

603
00:34:28,440 --> 00:34:30,640
Speaker 8: for the fair value of Musk services.

604
00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:34,879
Speaker 1: Another unusual thing about this six billion dollar legal fee

605
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:38,040
Speaker 1: is that the lawyers are asking to be paid in

606
00:34:38,200 --> 00:34:41,200
Speaker 1: Teslas stock. Another twist? Did that surprise you?

607
00:34:42,080 --> 00:34:45,960
Speaker 8: It is definitely an unconventional request. It was not surprising

608
00:34:46,120 --> 00:34:48,560
Speaker 8: to me that they made a request of Tesla stock

609
00:34:48,640 --> 00:34:52,120
Speaker 8: rather than money, in part because that is the very

610
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:54,960
Speaker 8: remedy that they were seeking. You know, they were seeking

611
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:57,600
Speaker 8: the return of stock. And if you then want to

612
00:34:57,640 --> 00:35:00,760
Speaker 8: translate that into what is eleven percent of the value

613
00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:03,000
Speaker 8: of that, well then you get another set of headaches

614
00:35:03,040 --> 00:35:05,759
Speaker 8: about how you on what date do you value it,

615
00:35:05,920 --> 00:35:08,000
Speaker 8: and how do you value some of these you know,

616
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:11,759
Speaker 8: options that haven't been fully vested yet and you know,

617
00:35:11,960 --> 00:35:15,040
Speaker 8: maybe underwater or you know, in the money and so forth.

618
00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:17,560
Speaker 8: So that ends up setting up a huge number of

619
00:35:17,760 --> 00:35:20,600
Speaker 8: valuation challenges that I think on some level of the

620
00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:22,880
Speaker 8: plaintiffs said, you know, look, we don't have to go

621
00:35:22,960 --> 00:35:25,640
Speaker 8: there on the valuation challenges. If we had petitioned for

622
00:35:25,719 --> 00:35:28,120
Speaker 8: the return of money, then we'd want eleven percent of

623
00:35:28,160 --> 00:35:30,480
Speaker 8: the money. Pre petition for the return of a bunch

624
00:35:30,520 --> 00:35:33,480
Speaker 8: of shares, we want eleven percent of the shares. Now,

625
00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:35,560
Speaker 8: on some level that makes sense. I think it might

626
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:39,560
Speaker 8: also make sense from the business positioning right now of Tesla.

627
00:35:39,640 --> 00:35:43,239
Speaker 8: It's still very, very valuable company obviously, but you know,

628
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:46,720
Speaker 8: the headwinds in the EV industry are now definitely strong,

629
00:35:46,880 --> 00:35:50,880
Speaker 8: and so having the corporate sort of till invaded by

630
00:35:50,960 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 8: a cash award that has to go out to plays attorneys,

631
00:35:54,360 --> 00:35:56,839
Speaker 8: that's a little bit harder still. You know, Tesla could

632
00:35:56,960 --> 00:35:59,160
Speaker 8: in principle to sell more stock and pay for it

633
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:01,640
Speaker 8: that way. But you know, on some level, even though

634
00:36:01,640 --> 00:36:04,440
Speaker 8: it's unconventional, it just didn't surprise me to see that

635
00:36:04,560 --> 00:36:07,400
Speaker 8: the request was being made for stock, which is the

636
00:36:07,640 --> 00:36:10,320
Speaker 8: very thing that the planets were asking for the return of,

637
00:36:10,880 --> 00:36:13,000
Speaker 8: rather than cash. Now, it does put kind of an

638
00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:16,120
Speaker 8: interesting twist on what do you do if you were

639
00:36:16,200 --> 00:36:19,759
Speaker 8: a plaintiff side firm who just has received a bunch

640
00:36:19,800 --> 00:36:22,719
Speaker 8: of stock in a defendant that you just sued, and

641
00:36:23,239 --> 00:36:25,520
Speaker 8: you're trying to you know, maybe build more business in

642
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:27,520
Speaker 8: the future, and some of that business might be now

643
00:36:27,760 --> 00:36:30,920
Speaker 8: suing that same company for other things in the future. Well,

644
00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:33,719
Speaker 8: now you're a big stockholder of that company, do you

645
00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:35,480
Speaker 8: really want to win because now it's going to hurt

646
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:37,840
Speaker 8: you in the pocketbook with respect to the stock that

647
00:36:37,920 --> 00:36:40,400
Speaker 8: you own. So my sense is that even you know,

648
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:44,040
Speaker 8: if an award of stock is approved and is effectively

649
00:36:44,239 --> 00:36:48,080
Speaker 8: executed on the plane's attorneys are probably going to be

650
00:36:48,520 --> 00:36:53,520
Speaker 8: well advised to try to unwind that position through progressive

651
00:36:53,640 --> 00:36:56,359
Speaker 8: sales of those stocks out into the market, so they

652
00:36:56,400 --> 00:36:59,120
Speaker 8: are no longer basically you know, big stockholders of the

653
00:36:59,280 --> 00:37:01,680
Speaker 8: company that they may end up suing again, you know,

654
00:37:01,880 --> 00:37:05,880
Speaker 8: possibly for how the company responds to this very judgment.

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Speaker 1: They'll be litigating this case for years to come, so

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Speaker 1: I'm sure we'll be talking about it again. Eric, thanks

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Speaker 1: so much. That's Professor Eric Tally of Columbia Law School,

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Speaker 1: and that's it for this edition of the Bloomberg Law Show.

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Speaker 1: Remember you can always get the latest legal news on

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Speaker 1: our Bloomberg Law podcast. You can find them on Apple

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Speaker 1: podcasts Spotify and at www dot bloomberg dot com, slash podcast,

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Speaker 1: Slash Law, and remember to tune into The Bloomberg Law

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Speaker 1: Show every weeknight at ten pm Wall Street Time. I'm

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Speaker 1: June Grosso and you're listening to Bloomberg