Jeff Wall and Morgan Ratner were named “Litigators of the Week” by the American Lawyer Litigation Daily for convincing the Delaware Supreme Court to reverse the Chancery Court and reinstate the 10-year incentive compensation plan for Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Jeff and Morgan represented Tesla Inc., along with Brian Frawley, Matthew Schwartz, Akash Toprani, Michael Lemanski, Tzvi Levitin, Will Weinberg, Renic Sloan and Kaitlyn Milinic. They shared the award with Chris Michel and Chris Kercher of Quinn, Emanuel, Urquhart & Sullivan, who represented Mr. Musk and the directors who ratified the compensation plan.
The ruling is one of the most consequential on executive compensation and corporate governance. “If the corporate governance world had a Super Bowl, this would be it,” the Litigation Daily stated. The Supreme Court found that the remedy chosen by the Chancery Court— rescission of Mr. Musk’s 2018 compensation plan—was improper because, among other things, it could not restore Mr. Musk to the same position he was in before the award was granted and would leave Mr. Musk uncompensated for his time and efforts over a period of six years.