Corporate Court Acting in Secret, Citizens Locked Out (Delaware)

[ensho]

http://www.alternet.org/news/146158/corporate_court_acting_in_secret%2C_citizens_locked_out


Delaware has a special court for corporations. And it's about to start hearing cases that the public can't hear about.


Last week, the state of Delaware radically altered the playing field between corporations and consumers by offering to hear lawsuits against Fortune 500 companies under conditions of secrecy, for a fee. Instead of receiving an open hearing before the general public, the Delaware News Journal reports that the Delaware Chancery Court's new "fast-track" system will allows disputes involving the state's tremendous cache of corporations to be considered in a private backroom meeting, not with a jury, but with a special jurist known as a chancellor.

(for a fee?! can this be legal?)

In this new form of arbitration, the chancellor will act as a hired consultant, listening to both sides of an argument and dispatching a private ruling within 90 days. Although this new judicial innovation in the state that houses 60 percent of the nation's publicly traded companies has not raised the same uproar as the U.S. Supreme Court's infamous Citizens United decision, the new law has equally ominous implications for the future of American democracy.

Most ordinary citizens have never even heard of the Court of Chancery, but among America's executive class, the Chancery has long been a prized legal venue thanks to its pro-business, pro-management rulings. The Delaware Chancery Court has been consistently rated the #1 court in the country by corporate lawyers and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (PDF). Combined with the state's lax corporate governance regulations, the Chancery is one of the prime reasons so many companies chose to incorporate in Delaware. When boards and CEOs are threatened with shareholder lawsuits and hostile mergers, they're competing with a home-court advantage in the pro-business Chancery. The Chancery is also notoriously hostile to federal agencies of every stripe that might penalize the state's corporate class—intemperate even to CEO-friendly agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The 200-year-old and entirely juryless Chancery is one of the most powerful judicial bodies in the country, a holdover from the British Empire that most other states had abandoned by the 18th century. Instead of judges or juries, the Chancery is chaired by a set of chancellors and vice-chancellors, each appointed by the Delaware governor to serve out a 12-year term making what equates to the national policy toward big business. William T. Quillen, former Delaware chancellor, attributes Delaware's throwback judicial system to the state's "basic conservatism."
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this must stop

this criminal, paid off, corporate court must be dismantled.

wake up Delawarians and the rest of us too.

[arcadian]

1. Is it fascism yet?

[zeemike]

2. Step one in privatizing the legal system.

That is all it is.

[Echo In Light]

3. "Special"

Ugh

k/r

[jberryhill]

4. Amazing what can be done with purple prose....

First of all, nearly every federal court now offers an arbitration track in order to clear the docket. Both parties have to agree to it, and it is confidential.

The key point there being both parties have to agree to it.

Can agreeing to arbitration and paying an arbitrator a fee be legal? Well, of course, people do it all of the time and court-sponsored alternative dispute resolution (ADR) programs are as common as dirt.

Secondly, courts of all kinds deal with legal disputes over non-disputed facts without juries all of the time. In fact, they are supposed to do that. Juries are for determining factual questions, not legal ones. It used to be common to have separate courts of equity and law, but these were merged in most systems except for, I think, two or three states of which Delaware is one.

I particularly like this turn of phrase:

"The Chancery is also notoriously hostile to federal agencies of every stripe that might penalize the state's corporate class"

Oh... you mean like when a government entity is attempting enforcement against a private one, then the burden is on the government entity? Umm, yeah, that's the way all courts are supposed to work.

[FiveGoodMen]

5. How the fuck is that legal?

[jberryhill]

7. How is what legal?

Lots of courts have a court sponsored alternative dispute resolution (ADR) program.

Here are the relevant rules in the Minnesota state courts (chosen from your profile):

http://www.mncourts.gov/rules/general/GrtitleII.htm#g114

What is missing from the breathless OP is that parties have to agree to use arbitration if they want to proceed that way.

It is normal, and extremely mundane. The OP omits critical information, and is apparently intended for people who are not familiar with court-sponsored ADR programs.


Rule 114.08 Confidentiality



(a) Evidence. Without the consent of all parties and an order of the court, or except as provided in Rule 114.09(e)(4), no evidence that there has been an ADR proceeding or any fact concerning the proceeding may be admitted in a trial de novo or in any subsequent proceeding involving any of the issues or parties to the proceeding.

(b) Inadmissability. Subject to Minn. Stat. § 595.02 and except as provided in paragraphs (a) and (d), no statements made nor documents produced in non-binding ADR processes which are not otherwise discoverable shall be subject to discovery or other disclosure. Such evidence is inadmissible for any purpose at the trial, including impeachment.

(c) Adjudicative Evidence. Evidence in consensual special master proceedings, binding arbitration, or in non-binding arbitration after the period for a demand for trial expires, may be used in subsequent proceedings for any purpose for which it is admissible under the rules of evidence.

(d) Sworn Testimony. Sworn testimony in a summary jury trial may be used in subsequent proceedings for any purpose for which it is admissible under the rules of evidence.

(e) Records of Neutral. Notes, records, and recollections of the neutral are confidential, which means that they shall not be disclosed to the parties, the public, or anyone other than the neutral, unless (1) all parties and the neutral agree to such disclosure or (2) required by law or other applicable professional codes. No record shall be made without the agreement of both parties, except for a memorandum of issues that are resolved.

[conspirator]

6. They might as well declare an Official corporate dictatorship already

and abolish voting.

[upi402]

8. All hail the Uniparty. You need not attempt resistance. n/t

[Better Believe It]

9. And what position has Joseph Biden along with other Delaware Democratic leaders taken on this?

[jberryhill]

10. React to a voluntary arbitration program?

The shock here is that Chancery Court didn't have one of these programs already, since most courts already do.

If litigating parties want to mutually opt for arbitration, WTF is the problem?