Seeking an appellate rehearing is always a long shot, but lawyers for Grupo Mexico may have thought the Delaware Supreme Court would take the bait in the Southern Peru derivative litigation. As we reported, Grupo Mexico opted not to contest the court’s decision last month to affirm a $2 billion judgment against the company by Delaware Chancellor Leo Strine Jr. last year. Instead, Bruce Angiolillo of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett confined Grupo’s reargument bid to the record-breaking $304 million fee award in the case, which amounts to roughly $35,000 an hour for the efforts of plaintiffs lawyers at Kessler, Topaz, Meltzer & Check and Prickett, Jones & Elliott.
The state’s high court declined to take up the issue on Friday, leaving a U.S. Supreme Court appeal as the last remaining option to undo the award. In a four-page ruling, the court concluded that its original decision–and the unprecedented award–will stand.
