Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. v. Airgas, Inc., No. 5249 (Del. Ch., March 5, 2010), transcript of ruling from the bench available here. For anyone who wants to know the latest iteration of law from the Delaware Court of Chancery on motions seeking to disqualify litigation counsel based on alleged conflicts of interest, this short ruling is required reading. In Delaware, such rulings from the bench can still be cited in briefs, by reference to the transcript.

We previously wrote about this high-stakes litigation concerning an unwelcomed takeover attempt and the ability of the target to "just say no". A sideshow of sorts has developed regarding the effort of the target to disqualify the distinguished counsel of the suitor, who is using the Cravath firm.

 Yesterday, Chancellor Chandler ruled from the bench that he would not disqualify the Cravath firm from serving as counsel for Air Products despite allegations by Airgas that Cravath had represented Airgas in related matters just before, allegedly, Cravath dropped Airgas in order to represent Air Products. Students of Delaware law in this area know that efforts to disqualify counsel in Delaware have not had a high success rate in the recent past. See, e.g., here (involving battle between Rohm and Haas v. Dow), here , here, here (despite possible violation of rule, no impact on the integrity of the legal proceeding), and here, for recent Delaware decisions in which the court has denied motions to disqualify counsel. For comparison purposes, see here  for a decision by a federal court in California based on different facts.

The denials of these motions should not be viewed as indicating that the Delaware courts do not take the rules of professional responsibility seriously. Rather, it should be seen as a manifestation of the concern that the courts have that litigators may try to use the Rules of Professional Conduct as a litigation tool. The argument is that transgressions of the ethics rules applicable to lawyers generally should be handled by the arm of the Supreme Court, which in Delaware is called Disciplinary Counsel, which is primarily responsible for the enforcement of those rules when alleged violations of those rules do not meet the high threshold of interfering with the administration of justice in a particular lawsuit.

Despite four separate ethics experts opining in this case, on behalf of each of the parties, on the requirements of Rules 1.7 and 1.9 of the Rules of Professional Conduct, the Court did not need to decide that issue.

Though the ruling from the bench is in the form of a transcript, which in Delaware can still be cited in briefs, it reads as if it is a carefully reasoned opinion (which it is). One should read the whole thing to appreciate it fully at the above link, but a few money quotes follow:

Before this Court may enter the Draconian order of disqualification, a moving party seeking that drastic relief must come forward with clear and convincing evidence establishing a violation of the Delaware Rules of Professional Conduct so extreme that it calls into question the fairness or the efficiency of the administration of justice. That is the holding of our Supreme Court in a case styled In Re: Dunlap.

Like Dow Chemical and the Rohm & Haas case, Airgas here has not demonstrated even simply persuasively, let alone clearly and convincingly, that it would be disadvantaged by the presence of its former counsel as advocate for its opponent, Air Products.

The Court found that Cravath did not have access to confidential information that it could use against Airgas in this case. Moreover, the Court observed that ethical walls had been established within the Cravath firm to separate those lawyers that had worked on the prior corporate matters from the lawyers working on the litigation. The Chancellor reasoned further that:

Given the absence of any credible threat of prejudice to Airgas from Cravath’s continued participation in this lawsuit, I think the threat of harm to Air Products from disqualification far outweighs the threat of harm to Airgas from a failure to disqualify.

Postscript. The New York Times’ DealBook blog wrote about yesterday’s decision here.