Judge Davis Completes Week-Long Trial in M&A Dispute

May 16, 2019

Publication

Judge Davis completed a week-long bench trial in Flowshare v. GeoResults, C.A. No. N17C-07-227 EMD CCLD, on April 12, 2019. Plaintiffs Flowshare, LLC and its founder, Eric Fogle, brought this action on July 21, 2017 asserting various claims of fraud and breach of contract arising out of a purchase agreement for the assets of GeoResults, Inc. GeoResults and the Sellers answered the plaintiffs’ claims and asserted five counterclaims. Following summary judgment in which the Court disposed of all the fraud claims asserted, the case proceeded to trial on competing breach of contract claims stemming from the sale of GeoResults.

Due to the existence of counterclaims, Judge Davis allotted trial time evenly between the parties. Accordingly, for the five-day trial, each side had 13 hours and 15 minutes. Judge Davis allowed the parties to present opening statements in lieu of pretrial briefs, and the openings were approximately a half hour each. Following the conclusion of evidence, Judge Davis ordered that simultaneous opening briefs be filed 30 days after the trial transcripts were received, with responsive briefs due 15 days thereafter. There was no page limit imposed on the post-trial briefs.

Analysis: This M&A trial highlights the type of increasingly complex cases handled by the CCLD judges on a regular basis and the different procedures employed by the CCLD judges to promptly resolve these disputes. Here, in lieu of pretrial briefs, Judge Davis allowed opening statements (which are uncommon in the Court of Chancery). The trial was also timed. Following the practice in Delaware federal courts, timed trials are now very common in CCLD cases.