Civil Action No. 201-N.Court of Chancery of Delaware.Date Submitted: June 9, 2004.
Date Decided: June 14, 2004.
Elizabeth M. McGeever, Prickett, Jones Elliott, P.A. Wilmington, DE.
Jesse A. Finkelstein, Brock E. Czeschin, Richards, Layton
Finger, P.A. Wilmington, DE.
WILLIAM B. CHANDLER III, Chancellor.
Dear Counsel:
This letter concerns (1) plaintiffs’ opposition to three commissions filed by defendants on June 4, 2004 and (2) plaintiffs’ motion to preclude defendants from calling certain witnesses at trial.
I will grant the motion for commission of Jon Salveson (Piper Jaffray). I will not grant the motions for commission of Scott Weiner (William Blair Capital Partners) and Tetsuya Koide (Mitsui Company Venture Partners) because those individuals or entities are not listed in defendants’ interrogatory responses. I have considered defendants’ arguments as to why these individuals were not included in those responses and reject the same as sophistry. I have considered plaintiffs’ argument that all of the commissions should be denied on grounds of delay. I reject this argument because of plaintiffs’ own request to delay the bulk of depositions until the first week of June.
At this time, I deny plaintiffs’ motion to preclude defendants from seeking discovery of or calling at trial representatives of ten “placement agents” identified in a document incorporated by reference in defendants’ amended interrogatory responses. Defendants have not yet sought discovery from such persons. Without knowing which or, more importantly, how many of these placement agents defendants seek information from, I must exercise restraint. I will say, however, that seeking information from several placement agents may be unnecessarily duplicative and, given the short time frame for discovery, unduly burdensome. Also, this trial is scheduled to last three days. As such, the Court, out of necessity, cannot allow defendants to call ten placement agents as witnesses.
IT IS SO ORDERED.