The Delaware Court of Chancery on Friday ruled that a top lawyer for William I. Koch will be allowed to testify on behalf of the billionaire in a bitter fight over investor rights that could determine the future of Koch’s Oxbow Carbon firm.
In a 15-page memorandum opinion, Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster ruled that the testimony of R. Robert Popeo, a Boston-based senior partner with Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, would not violate the witness-as-advocate rule, an ethical principle that generally bars an attorney from testifying for or against his or her client.
