WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Today, Citizens for a Pro-Business Delaware continued its campaign to expose the egregious billing practices of the law firm Skadden Arps and attorney Robert Pincus, the former court-appointed Custodian of the TransPerfect sale. The advocacy group for Delaware court reform and diversity placed a mobile billboard truck outside of the American University Washington College of Law, where Pincus teaches a class on Wednesdays titled “Deals.”
The billboard highlights Pincus’ malfeasance in multiple cases where he has abused his court-appointed powers to enrich himself at the expense of the companies involved in litigation. In the TransPerfect case, an independent legal billing expert found large numbers of generally objectionable billing practices’ from Custodian TransPerfect Robert Pincus and urged across-the-board fee reductions, only to be largely ignored by the Chancery Court, costing the company upwards of $50 million in total legal fees throughout the case. In his next Custodianship, the sale of Citgo, Pincus rapidly exceeded a court-mandated $2 million fee cap, prompting complaints about unjustified overbilling from the parties involved.
Pincus’ former firm, Skadden Arps, where he served as a Partner until his retirement, has faced scrutiny over its billing practices for decades. In recent months, insurers for the National Hockey League alleged that Skadden “billed the NHL unreasonably and for unnecessary work” in connection with a concussion lawsuit settled in 2018. During the case, the NHL was charged $4 in legal fees for every $1 the league paid in a settlement.
Said Citizens for a Pro-Business Delaware Campaign Manager Chris Coffey, “Skadden and Pincus have gotten away with highway robbery in the form of massively inflated legal bills for far too long. We’re making sure that these bad actors are held accountable publicly for their bad-faith efforts to inflate their profits at the expense of those that they supposedly represent. Our goal is to make sure that students and faculty at the American University law school know about Pincus’ sordid history as the TransPerfect Custodian and Skadden’s long-standing reputation for unnecessary and excessive billing.”
Citizens for a Pro-Business Delaware is a group made up of more than 5,000 members including employees of the global translation services company TransPerfect, as well as concerned Delaware residents, business executives and others. They formed in April of 2016 to focus on raising awareness with Delaware residents, elected officials, and other stakeholders about the unprecedented, forced sale of TransPerfect. While their primary goal of saving the company has been accomplished, they continue their efforts to fight for more transparency in the Delaware Chancery Court. For more information on Citizens for a Pro-Business Delaware or to join the cause, visit DelawareForBusiness.org.
