Leo Strine Retiring as Delaware Supreme Court’s Chief Judge

(Bloomberg) -- Leo Strine, head of the Delaware Supreme Court, is stepping down after five years of leading the state’s sole appellate court that decides many of the highest-profile business disputes in the U.S.

Strine said in a letter to Delaware Governor John Carney that he doesn’t have any immediate plans after he retires this fall. In the past, he’s taught about Delaware corporate law at institutions such as Harvard University, the University of California at Los Angeles and Yale University and churned out law-review articles on topics ranging from defining good-faith in corporate law and investor suits that generate more compensation for lawyers than shareholders.

Known as an iconoclast who peppers his decisions with pop-culture and sports references, Strine served as a trial judge for 15 years, hearing cases involving dueling billionaires and corporate divorces tied to failed buyout deals. At times, he’s been criticized for straying into irrelevant issues when scrutinizing corporate statutes and snafus.

In a 2012 case involving fashion designer Tory Burch, Strine described the fight between Burch and her former husband as a “drunken WASP fest,’’ and in deciding when to schedule the case, said he didn’t want to burden “anyone’s Hanukkah, New Year’s Christmas, Kwanzaa, Festivus with this preppy clothing dispute.’’

Strine, a Democrat who served as legal counsel for ex-Governor Tom Carper before being appointed a judge, is the subject of media speculation about his political future and whether he’ll run for the state’s top job in 2024 after Carney would finish his second term.

Michael Kelly, a Wilmington, Delaware-based lawyer and chairman of McCarter & English LLP, praised Strine’s intelligence and hard work.

“Like most other judges on the Delaware courts, he could have made a lot more money in the private sector over the years,” Kelly said. “We should be thankful for his sacrifice.”

Either at the trial or appeal level, Strine has had a hand in deciding some of the biggest merger-and-acquisition cases and corporate contretemps over almost two decades. Delaware is corporate home to more than half of U.S. public companies and more than 60% of Fortune 500 firms. Its chancery court specializes in quickly resolving big-dollar business cases.

In a high-profile case in 2012, Strine rebuked Goldman Sachs Group Inc. for being conflicted in connection with Kinder Morgan Inc.’s $21.1 billion purchase of El Paso Corp., the bank’s biggest takeover assignment for 2011. The judge found that Goldman was on both sides of the deal and improperly influenced negotiations. As part of a $110 million settlement of El Paso investors’ claims, Goldman bankers agreed to forgo their $20 million fee in the deal.

The judge never shied away from taking on firms accused of seeking to hide corporate wrongdoing. In 2013, Strine forced Walmart Stores Inc. to turn over documents about an alleged scheme to bribe Mexican officials to speed store-construction in that country. When the dismissal of an investor suit over the plot made its way to Delaware’s highest court, Strine had to recuse himself.

As an appellate judge, Strine sometimes stood apart from his six other colleagues on the state’s highest court. He was the only voice of dissent in 2016 when the court allowed Energy Transfer LP to walk away from its $33 billion takeover of pipeline rival Williams Cos. because tax lawyers for the Texas-based energy firm refused to sign off on a tax issue tied to the merger.

Strine questioned whether Energy Transfer officials, who’d gotten cold feet about the buyout during a dip in the natural-gas market, leaned on their attorneys to find a way out of the deal via the tax glitch. He said the attorneys from Latham & Watkins LLP who served as Energy Transfer’s tax advisers were “under undue pressure” to declare the issue a deal breaker.

“There has been no jurist with more of an impact on corporate law in the last twenty years than Chief Justice Strine,” said David Hennes, a lawyer with Ropes & Gray. “It is a blow to corporate practitioners to see him leave the bench.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Jef Feeley in Wilmington, Delaware at jfeeley@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Peter Blumberg, Joe Schneider

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