In TowerHill Wealth Management, LLC v. The Bander Family Partnership, L.P., (Del. Ch., Oct. 9, 2008), read opinion here, the Chancery Court enjoined the defendant from pursuing arbitration of claims that the court determined should be litigated in Chancery. In addition to resolving issues of substantive arbitrability, the court provides an extensive analysis of the factors that need to be satisfied under Delaware Supreme Court Rule 42 in order to successfully seek an interlocutory appeal (and were not satisfied here), as well as applying the discretionary standard to stay a trial court’s decision pending appeal (not met here).
After explaining its reasoning, the court acknowledged that even though it denied both the interlocutory appeal and the stay pending appeal, the Supreme Court could still decide to stay the trial court’s decision to enjoin the arbitration and then still accept the interlocutory appeal.
This is the first of two Chancery Court decisions within about a week of each other that were decided by the Chancery Court this month and that by coincidence both involve enjoining arbitration and determining whether the Chancery Court or an arbitrator should decide a particular issue in light of an arbitration clause between the parties.