Tesla shareholders appeared in court on Monday to try to convince the judge to rule in their favor and overturn the "outlandish" $7.2 billion in legal fees billed to the company in the contentious case of Elon Musk's $56 billion pay package.
Investor Richard Tornetta made the whopping request on behalf of law firms that represented him in the case. One of the three firms that Tornetta hired was Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann.
Tornetta once sued Musk over the latter's pay package in 2018 despite the fact that he owned only owned nine shares. Tornetta won the legal battle after the package was eventually voided by the courts.
According to Reuters, the fee asked by Tornetta equals to approximately $7.2 billion given the stock price of Tesla as of Friday. A breakdown of the fee would amount to about $370,000 for every hour worked by the 37 lawyers, plus their associates and paralegals.
Fortune also earlier noted that the legal fees that were billed by the lawyers were actually 17 times as large as the biggest fee in the history of Delaware.
Based on a court filing, one shareholder of the EV-company from New Jersey, Nathan Chiu, stated that "the legal fees appear exceedingly disproportionate and outlandish."
The Delaware Chancery Court was flooded with around 1,500 letters and objects over the requested fee. Chiu, along with more than 8,000 Tesla stockholders and the California Public Employees' Retirement System, all contributed to the letters received by the court.
The lawyers of Tornetta argued that they deserve the requested fee since they gave Tesla a huge economic benefit when they had Musk's pay package voided. That paved the way for the return of 266 million shares, which were reserved for stock options, to Tesla.
According to the lawyers of Tornetta, it is the largest judgment awarded by an American court, and it excludes punitive damages. His lawyers also said that they must receive a fee that is equal to about 11% of the judgment and they wished to be paid in forms of shares, approximately 29 million shares.
