Ex-Twitter execs sue over $1M+ in unpaid legal expenses A trio of former Twitter executives led by ex-CEO Parag Agrawal have sued the company for allegedly not reimbursing more than a million dollars in legal expenses incurred during and after their employment, as their contracts oblige. Agrawal, along with former CFO Ned Segal and head of legal and policy Vijaya Gadde, claim in …
If these guys get a judgement against Twitter, and Twitter defaults on it, the plaintiffs can't send a team to Twitter HQ to confiscate some servers to re-sell to pay for the judgement, because there aren't any on-prem servers! (It'll take a lot of office desks and desktop PCs resold as used to bring in seven figures ...)
If ever there were a case for piercing the corporate veil and going after the owner's assets...
Musk would throw a Trumpian tantrum. It would be a beautiful spectacle.
Hmm. Or confiscate Twitter accounts as assets. Let's see how much Musk enjoys being "deplatformed" from his own platform.
for "The Trump Playbook"
It is long past time that the defendants have to put into escrow the sum they are being sued for BEFORE the trial begins. It should be done by court order. Failure to do so sends the CEO to jail for contempt and the case is awarded to the plaintiffs by summary judgement.
But... the US legal system is an utter mess and wide open to abuse as demonstrated by Trump, Musk and especially Alex Jones.
UK civil law allows defendants to ask the court to ensure the plaintiff will have the ability to pay costs to prevent defendants being harmed by malicious and vexatious claims.
But making the defendant ante-up is ridiculous, though I recall the judge in a case I was involved in, where a plaintiff tried that play, used more formal language, like "contrary to any concept of a fair judicial process" or something like that.
Courts decide if any redress is due; it is up to the plaintiff to deal with securing redress and costs if they win.
"But making the defendant ante-up is ridiculous"
That was my first reaction. But then it occurred to me that as there's a concept of a vexatious litigant perhaps there should also be an special status for the opposite case, a defendant who gets a large number of claims against them. It would not necessarily mean having to commit money into escrow but having their accounts frozen so that payments by then need approval of the plaintiffs. At the very least it would make delaying tactics difficult for them.
"It would not necessarily mean having to commit money into escrow but having their accounts frozen so that payments by then need approval of the plaintiffs."
Whenever you think of ideas like this, check whether they work if reversed. Let's say that Musk cancels his longstanding policy of making logical, well-considered decisions not at all based on who he happens to be unhappy with this morning and starts suing anyone he can think of. Let's say that he's going to sue that guy who told him he was wrong about how the Twitter app worked for breaching the NDA. By releasing some information, he has cost Twitter priceless information. If you could use an action like that to prevent the defendant from paying money, you could prevent them paying for a lawyer, force them into picking the cheapest lawyer if the court refused that last idea, or deny them simple expenses. It works the same way with a company, probably even worse because they're less sympathetic and have a lot more bills to pay than the average person. That could be a great weapon for winning court cases.
A slightly better version would be to require the approval of a judge, rather than the plaintiffs. While better, it's still bad; now you've just got to get a judge that is willing to let you use this mechanism as a weapon and you can use a suit to lock up someone else's money, probably also costing their ability to contest the case well. If it is dangerous and produces injustice when a big company uses it against a small one or an individual, it should not be allowed. Yes, when the big company is on the other side, it may feel nicer having a bigger hammer, but it won't justify the damage done in all the other cases.
"starts suing anyone he can think of"
That would open him to being declared a vexatious litigant. From Wikipedia "Those on the vexatious litigant list are usually either forbidden from any further legal action or are required to obtain prior permission from a senior judge before taking any legal action."
I was, in effect following your own logic of what happens if you put this into reverse: if someone has multiple cases pending against them from multiple litigants should a court take that into account as possibly indicative that some restraint is needed to avoid the possibility of their incurring still more?
"A slightly better version would be to require the approval of a judge, rather than the plaintiffs"
A likely mechanism would be the judge appointing an administrator responsible to both the court and representatives of the plaintiffs.
"That would open him to being declared a vexatious litigant."
Not immediately, and not guaranteed unless the suits he files demonstrate to the courts that they're consistently bad. If he decided to use the logic I described about an NDA, that would probably lose, but it's not so obviously indefensible to meet the standards for vexatious litigation unless he did a lot more of it.
That wasn't what I was trying to say, however. My point was that it would be bad to give anyone the possibility of that power over a defendant even if that defendant is unsympathetic because of the dangers of abuse. You can't use "they have a lot of people suing them" as evidence that they must be bad, and if you get too many powers to squash a defendant, it makes litigation an even more powerful weapon than it already is. So far, Twitter has demonstrated that they're willing to commit a number of breaches of contract, but they haven't even lost any of these suits yet though I'm confident they will, so it's hard to figure out how they'd earn the theorized vexatious defendant designation where vexatious litigant designation usually requires that you've lost a bunch of cases before they grant it.
"A likely mechanism would be the judge appointing an administrator responsible to both the court and representatives of the plaintiffs."
I wouldn't support it if the plaintiffs had any connection to it closer than requesting it. There's some logic in the court restricting the assets of the accused in case they lose, although I'm not entirely convinced it's good enough to set up this course. Putting that power in the hands of the plaintiffs is dangerous. For the same reason, someone declared to be a vexatious litigant still gets to apply to the court if they think they have a reason to file another case, and the court decides on its own whether they are right. The vexatious litigant doesn't have to apply to the defendant for permission to sue them and the defendant doesn't get to use that status to violate that person's rights with impunity.
But... the US legal system is an utter mess and wide open to abuse as demonstrated by Trump, Musk and especially Alex Jones.
Yep. Like Trump being arrested for an unspecified federal crime that would otherwise be a misdemeanor and time-barred. And the prosecution's star witnesses are a porn 'star' who just lost an expensive defamation case, an attorney who'd been convicted of extortion, tax evasion, fraud, and embezzlement, and then there's Cohen.
But that's showbiz. Curious how these cases will work out. Often there can be exclusions, eg DOI (Directors & Officers Indemnity) often don't cover negligence, or actions that could be successfully argued to be against company and shareholder interests, so whether their contracts with Twitter have anything similar. Congress is maybe a more interesting one given committees have also been heavily politicised, and there are costs and consequences.
It's a strange situation where execs may get summoned to answer questions about potentially illegal activities, and then claim costs on expenses. But then it would be equally strange if Congress or the tax payer were expected to cover those costs.
You should tale a look at the specifics of the charges..
Which are... ? 34 or so misdemeanors, which would have been statute barred, and an unspecified felony that's been used to elevate misdemeanors into felony counts. See-
https://law.justia.com/codes/new-york/2019/pen/part-3/title-k/article-175/175-10/
§ 175.10 Falsifying business records in the first degree.
A person is guilty of falsifying business records in the first degree
when he commits the crime of falsifying business records in the second
degree, and when his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit
another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.
Soo.. what's the other crime that justifies the elevation? Bragg claims he doesn't have to tell anyone, not even the accused. This is an.. unusual approach to the normal legal principles where the accused can reasonably expect to know what they're being charged with. That may be explained in a few days as I think NYC has to give the defence particualars of all the charges within something like 20 days.
It's also interesting you mention mugging, because that's a bit of a problem in NYC, although not to it's elite because those felonies are usually downgraded to misdemeanours so the offenders can repeat. But to avoid looking like a mug, I'm sure you can supply details of the alleged felony..
But it's also one of those fun things that opens a lot of doors. Has Twitter ever paid out hush money? Have any other politicians? How many have recorded those as 'legal expenses'? And back to the story, if former Twitter execs are later charged with felonies*, should Twitter be expected to cover their legal expenses?
*Not being a lawyer or an expert on the Constitution, how things like conspiracy to violate the First Amendment would actually get charged..
At the end of the day Trump has shown that he is more than capable of defending himself in court, he has plenty of financial leverage and he's more slippery than a greased weasel. He can take care of himself and he usually does, spare your pity for the mugs who contribute to his fundraising efforts.
You are demonstrating your ignorance on a number of things. Your last comment did you no favors at all:
if former Twitter execs are later charged with felonies*, should Twitter be expected to cover their legal expenses?
*Not being a lawyer or an expert on the Constitution, how things like conspiracy to violate the First Amendment would actually get charged..
1. Violations of a constitutional amendment are not felonies or in fact crimes at all. This is related to
2. Twitter's executives cannot violate the first amendment in the U.S., which only applies to governments passing laws, which is clearly stated in the text of that amendment and I'm sure you've seen it because everybody on the internet, regardless of where they live, has seen this argument before and the text has been quoted. All of this means that
3. If a law violates the amendment, the courts strike down that law and nobody goes to jail.
You are demonstrating your ignorance on a number of things. Your last comment did you no favors at all:
Like I said, I am not a lawyer, and thus not well versed in the finer arts of lawfare.
1. Violations of a constitutional amendment are not felonies or in fact crimes at all.
So why bother with it? If you can happily ignore the Constitution, what's the point? Ok, so I understand that there are laws and penalties that derive from the Constitution, and those laws, or charges based on those laws can eventually be dismissed.
2. Twitter's executives cannot violate the first amendment in the U.S., which only applies to governments passing laws,
I'm pretty sure it also applies to actions taken by the government. Hence all the fuss, Congress investigating the possible violations of free speech, weaponisation of the DoJ, and why ex-Twitter execs are being hauled to Washington to give testimony. Those investigations AFAIK also have the ability to refer matters to the DoJ for charging, should evidence of crimes be uncovered. Hence why I was curious about potential conspiracy charges. Twitter is, and always has been free to ToS any user for any reason, and the only remedy is maybe a civil case for breach of contract.
Which is also back to my point about who pays, or who should pay? I know if I run a business, I can buy DOI insurance to cover execs legal fees. If I don't entirely trust my employer (and who'd trust me?), or the DOI cover offered, I could also buy legal costs insurance. The US media is splattered with ads for that covering anything from medical to firearms to general household liability. T&Cs and exemptions apply.
Generally, those policies don't cover negligence, incompetence or criminal acts. So if I go rob a bank, I can't reasonably expect my employer or their insurer to cover my legal costs. If I've been acting against official company policy, in my own personal interest or negligent policies often won't cover that either. All part of the fun of being a company owner, and why I was always advised to make sure I had both DOI cover as an officer, and personal insurance as an indivdual. Especially as the personal can be expensed.
So I guess it'll all boil down to what was in these individual's contracts. They appear to have been effectively fired, but the US is weird with it's hire & fire at will policies. If someone is terminated for cause, it's pretty common to lose benefits. We know Twitter was pretty lax around that kind of stuff, eg $1,000 t-shirts and other lavish expenses. There may also be procedural stuff. So if there's litgation where I'm involved as a corporate officer, then I inform the company, and they arrange the legal support. If the ex-execs didn't do this, Twitter may have no liability. It's one of those fun areas of M&A and due diligence activity, ie going through contracts and wondering why the business you might be thinking of buying ever agreed to those in the first place.
3. If a law violates the amendment, the courts strike down that law and nobody goes to jail.
Or if prosecutions violate the amendments, or laws, prosecutions may be struck down and people released from jail, eg-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Chansley
"knowingly entering or remaining in any restricted building or grounds without lawful authority, and with violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds"
after exculpatory evidence was witheld in a pretty clear violation of the Fith Amendment.
Statute limited?
NY suspended Statute of limitations due to covid.
Then there is precident that you can't sue a POTUS while in office and that being POTUS suspends that statute of limitations while in office. That was affirmed by the supreme court a long time ago... mind you with the current corrupt SCOTUS you never know what the will decide.
Technically, the governor tolled the statue of limitations for a certain number of days – I don't recall the exact number offhand.
In any case, of course, the Trump prosecution is far more complicated than any of the postings in this thread suggest. Devin (LegalEagle) did a good rundown of the case and applicable law in a couple of YouTube videos; he at least is a lawyer and cited the actual charges, New York law, precedent, etc, rather than making handwaving and in places patently false claims.1 You see similar distortions from Fox News' collection of (reluctant) pundits, who try to present this as about sex or hush money, when in fact the legal case revolves entirely around fraudulent business records and FEC violations. It wouldn't matter if Trump had paid off Seth Meyers to stop doing impressions of him on TV before the election; it would be the same case.
1Such as JE's remark about "unknown Federal law", a display of ignorance that would do Rudy Giuliani proud. There's ample precedent holding that an attempt to squelch a story in the media about a candidate during the course of a Federal election constitutes an in-kind contribution, and so must conform to contribution limits and be disclosed. That's settled as a violation of Federal election law. There are other aspects that aren't clear, such as whether the New York clause elevating the business-record-keeping violation from a misdemeanor to a felony is triggered by violating a Federal law, rather than a state one; apparently no one's found any applicable precedent on that, so remains to be tested.
So let me get this right, you claim without any evidence of applicable expertise that a court full of people who have studied and practised law for a long time and who have the actual law and title listed with the charges got it wrong?
From what I've seen of the Trump camp you'd fit right in, but I think it's a bit thin to dismiss the conclusions these people have come to as that is based on (a) evidence, (b) law and (c) a clear understanding of the gaming by Trump to have these charges time out - a feature that I would personally see removed because it only seems to assist the criminally minded.
So let me get this right, you claim without any evidence of applicable expertise that a court full of people who have studied and practised law for a long time and who have the actual law and title listed with the charges got it wrong?
The 'court full of people' has mostly been the prosecution so far, who seem a tad conficted. Plus there are plenty of lawyers and legal scholars who've also questioned the charges. But as with the other mug, care to state the actual law and title that elevates the misdemeanors to felonies?
Wait, listing it all, is that not exactly what the indictment is for?
It appears that a single misdemeanor does not make a felony, but multiple ones do, even if they look alike but are in furtherance of each other. From that perspective, 34 seems to be a bit overkill but as they've identified (and, let's not forget, confirmed via evidence) 34 separate breaches of the law I'd say that line was comprehensively crossed.
This is the other aspect at hand: this is not a group of people alleging something, they don't work the Trump way. They work with that annoying thing called evidence. Not that it matters to Trumpers who, when commanded, will call white black - no wait, that doesn't work with racists - OK, who will call orange a normal skin tone if so desired by he-who-should-be-in-jail-already but the rest of the world sees facts as useful tools to deal with that thing called reality.
It appears that a single misdemeanor does not make a felony, but multiple ones do, even if they look alike but are in furtherance of each other. From that perspective, 34 seems to be a bit overkill but as they've identified (and, let's not forget, confirmed via evidence) 34 separate breaches of the law I'd say that line was comprehensively crossed.
I cited the code-
.. and when his intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.
Quantity of charges doesn't elevate it to a felony, and again, I'm not a lawyer, but it also applies to 'class 2' offences. Hence why so many actual legal experts have weighed in on the charging sheet, and the unprecedented approach Bragg, who was elected on a 'Get Trump' ticket is pursuing. The '34 breaches' seem to relate to falsifying business records, so essentially the same misdemeanor, yet despite being the same offence, all elevated to felonys by implying a "conspiracy to undermine the integrity of the 2016 election.". Another potentially novel aspect is the mystery felony/federal charge could relate to violating the laws of physics, given some of the alleged falsifications occured in 2017. I'm not clear on how actions that happened in 2017 could have influenced an election held in the previous year. And of course other participants in that election had 'legal expenses' that paid for Steele's dodgy dossier and other opposition research.
Also, nothing has been confirmed by evidence. That's the point (normally) of trials. All that's been confirmed so far is Bragg believes there is sufficient evidence to bring a case. And justify the expense of doing so. It's up to the judge and jury to confirm if the evidence actually supports the charges, and then it'll be up to the appeals courts.
..but the rest of the world sees facts as useful tools to deal with that thing called reality.
I think the rest of the world actually expects a fair and apolitical justice system. Democrats, and their supporters appear to disagree. Which is also getting back on topic, ie whether Twitter was part of that 'weaponisation' of the US justice system, and if crimes were committed as part of that process. Which still leaves the question of who should be paying the expenses for those investigations, or if that system could/should be reformed. Especially given the cost disparity, lawfare and problems like sovereign immunity for accusers. So the ex-Twitter execs were summoned to Washington, given a very public humiliation and couldn't sue the Congress-critters for any defamatory statements (I think). The UK sometimes does the same thing because MPs can defame people in the House and be protected by Parliamentary Privilege.
"I'm not clear on how actions that happened in 2017 could have influenced an election held in the previous year."
So prior to the 2016 election, which Trump is running for alongside Mike Pence to pick up the right-wing religious base, people were looking to sell stories about Trump's numerous (alleged) affairs and even an (alleged) love child out of wedlock.
These stories would undermine Trump's campaign enough to cause them problems. So they buried them - the stories were bought but never published, and gagging orders prevented the stories being sold again elsewhere.
That happened pre-2016. What has been uncovered is that Trump didn't repay the people who made those payments until 2017. And he said he was paying "legal expenses" when in reality he was paying "hush money" ...
These stories would undermine Trump's campaign enough to cause them problems. So they buried them - the stories were bought but never published, and gagging orders prevented the stories being sold again elsewhere.
Excellent. Now all you need to do is convince a jury that the 'conspiracy' would have been enough to swing the election*. Clinton's defence, should that become necessary, is arguably simpler given her 'legal expenses' given her attempts to influence that election weren't enough for her to win.
And he said he was paying "legal expenses" when in reality he was paying "hush money" ...
I'm pretty sure GAAP doesn't have a category for that. I'm much less sure what the IRS might say about tax liabilities. But Trump paid a lawyer for an NDA. So far, so normal. Paying for NDAs or 'hush money' isn't a crime. So if it's normal and legal to enter those as legal expenses, where's the crime? Again back to the mysterious felony/federal charge that wasn't included in the indictment. But those actual alleged offences, ie falsifying records didn't happen until after the election. Good luck proving intent and conspiracy when the key witness is someone who's already been convicted of perjury, and was Trump's attorney at the time, so presumably there would be some protections wrt attorney/client privelige.
But like I've said before, I kinda hope Trump loses because it opens the door to all kinds of retaliatory legal actions. Did the Dems conspire conceal funding for the dodgy Russian dossier? The Biden laptop? Business dealings with China and Ukraine? With Twitter and other 'social media' companies to keep bad news out of the news? Will every legal expense in every public filing, corporate or otherwise now have to be examined, and restated if it was for an NDA, or 'hush money'? Lawyers stand to get rich off this one for decades..
*Especially as after the arraignment, Trump's popularity rose in the opinion polls.
Hmm, while Donald and his shysters have been playing rock-paper-scissors, the DAs have been playing 3D chess. Trump could not play the 5th card in the James case due to "Adverse Inference" in that civil case, so he gave evidence for 7 hours, evidence that can now be used for Bragg's criminal case. The neat thing is because the civil case is going to trial first - Don's shysters can't get a stay on it due to a pending criminal proceeding, so they'll get to visit court at least twice. Trump and his clownshoe shysters haven't been giving the DAs enough respect - and it looks like they are going to pay for it.
They now have to depend on "Gym Jordan" (CU Law - Failed) and the Supremes who answer to the highest bidders - they have essentially already lost in the court of public opinion. Trump's biography is going to read like a cheap knock off of Idi Amin's at this rate...
Plenty of time for more twists and turns - but it looks like Trump has seen the incoming torpedoes and scuttled his boat before the battle actually started.
It's not even the initial coverup – the payment to Stormy Daniels. It's not just the second coverup – the falsified business records. It's really the third coverup: not reporting the second coverup as an in-kind contribution to a candidate. That is the hay the prosecution is making, and tough luck for Trump and his ninny defenders, because it is indeed the law.
The prosecution doesn't have to show conspiracy; Trump signed at least one of the checks, and there's ample other physical and testimonial evidence showing he knew and was involved in the whole process (including Giuliani's relentless babbling anecdotes in television interviews where he essentially confesses in proxy for Trump – the man does not know when to shut the hell up, which basically would be before he starts talking).
The main questions at hand, as far as I can see based on various analyses I've watched and read, are whether the statute of limitations will be a problem (the COVID tolling may not have been long enough, depending on how things are framed, but there are various other circumstances under which limitations can be suspended), and whether a Federal crime can be used as the aggravating factor in New York's business-records law. Oh, and whether the jury will agree that the two types of crimes (election contribution violation and business record falsification) actually occurred, but as an a priori matter of fact they did, so that's just a question of whether the jury nullifies, which is statistically unlikely (but more likely for a wealthy white defendant).
Don't worry if you don't like that case he is facing much more serious charges in Georgia and the two the special prosector is running. Seditious conspiracy, attempting to defraud the US government, incitement to insurrection, theft of government property, obstruction of justice, witness tampering. The list goes on and on.
Twitter must now have over a hundred legal cases against it, and probably many dozens more before year end.
Unfair dismissals, violating labour laws, unpaid bills, breaking laws on privacy and hate speech etc. etc. in many dozens of jurisdictions all across the world, from Germany to Delaware, from Ireland to India. I think we need a searchable database.
[Start date, end date, jurisdiction, court, case name, case number/docket number, counter party, suit type, suit status, news articles relating to the case, legal analysis relating to the case] did I forget any fields?
The most entertaining part of that would be to keep the wteet up with the link to it. Maybe create a chart of twitter accounts, time of posting and time of account closure. You could cause serious trouble by turning it into a game of who can keep an account up the longest with a reference to this.
<evil grin>
Yeah, I wish the people running Twitter is Going Great! updated more frequently. They've taken their inspiration (and design, and in fact code) from Molly White, but they don't have her thoroughness. I sympathize; I imagine they have day jobs. But TiGG would be more fun, and more importantly more useful for research, if it were more comprehensive and timely.
Musk wants Twitter->x.com to become a payment processor where people leave their money with him because he promises the highest interest rates in the world. At the same time he is avoiding promises Twitter made to staff he has fired, staff he offered redundancy payments to, the owners of the offices Twitter rents, various software suppliers, hosting companies, ...
I can't even guess how high a Twitter/X interest rate would need to be to cover the risk. Even in a downturn my 401(k) is about as safe as civilization1 and growing at about 7%, though much of that is new contributions. But I can't see X ever being a good financial decision.
1So not terribly safe, but as safe as any investment that's not physical property under my direct control at my home. For the latter I have housing, arable land, and a well. Do need to get some PV installed, though.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
