Fashion star Tory Burch, she of the oversized "T" logo and
brightly colored shoes and handbags, really, really does not get
along with her former business partner and former husband,
Christopher Burch. According to his breach-of-contract and tortuous interference complaint against Tory and her fellow
board members, filed last month in Delaware Chancery Court, Tory
was so incensed that Christopher started up a rival chain of
boutiques after their divorce that she rigged the bidding for
his 28 percent stake in her company in an attempt to squash his
start-up. Tory filed a countersuit Tuesday, accusing Christopher
of stealing trade secrets to establish stores that look
suspiciously like Tory's boutiques, stocked with mass-market
knock-offs of her luxe brand.
Both Tory and Christopher have armed themselves with some of
the fiercest lawyers practicing in Delaware: Quinn Emanuel
Urquhart & Sullivan and Abrams & Bayliss for Christopher;
Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Morris, Nichols, Arsht &
Tunnell for Tory, along with Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton. You
don't hire firms like these unless you're expecting an all-out
corporate war, which is what a month of procedural battles in
Burch v. Burch portends.
But at the first scheduling hearing in the case, which took
place last week, Chancellor Leo Strine -- who conveniently
assigned this high-profile case to himself -- promised to keep
the litigation in perspective. "I (don't) see any reason to
burden anyone's Hanukkah, New Year's, Christmas, Kwanzaa,
Festivus with this preppy clothing dispute," Strine told the
assembled mass of lawyers, according to this absolutely hilarious, must-read transcript. "I'm sorry, but this is -- this
is not a case about intercontinental ballistic missiles."
That wasn't all Strine had to say, of course. As he wended
his way toward proposing an April trial date for Christopher's
claims and Tory's counterclaims, Strine reflected on the (in his
view) unwarranted popularity of "duck boots," the mysterious
utility of the Topsiders his son just bought and the strangely
bright colors of WASP-preferred styles. He asked Marc Wolinsky
of Wachtell if Wolinsky knew who Ralph Lipschitz is, then gave
away the answer: It's Ralph Lauren's given name. That revelation
led Strine and the Delaware lawyers in his courtroom down memory
lane, reminiscing about a store called Gershman's that sold, in
the words of Gregory Williams of Richards, Layton & Finger (who
represents some members of the board of Tory's company),
"slightly irregular alligator shirts."
"Exactly, Izods and Polos," Strine said. "They were right
from the factory. Frankly, anybody who was a real WASP would
shop at Gershman's because real WASPs actually don't go and pay
full Polo price They don't pay full Polo price at Macy's. No
way. They actually will find a bargain. That's how they got to
be, you know, WASPs."
Strine expressed some doubt that Tory's brand, which he said
he was familiar with, had revolutionized the preppy clothing
industry. "No one who's in any form of art, including if you
call this art, can claim entire originality to anything," Strine
warned Tory's lawyers. Perhaps the best way to evaluate the
similarity between her apparel and Christopher's, he suggested,
would be a fashion show featuring the lawyers in the courtroom.
Finally, the chancellor talked about his recent re-reading
of John Cheever novels and how that would inform the Burch
litigation. "Totally unrelated to this case, I've been deep in
it, in an autumnal Cheever phase. And so I've been reading all
kinds of Cheever," he said. "So I'll have to just keep that up
through the case. Have you read your Cheever lately? You know
who he is? ... And Mad Men will be coming back at some point in
time. So I think if you read Cheever, go see the new Virginia
Woolf revival and watch Mad Men, we'll be all geared up and in
the mood for this sort of drunken WASP fest. Are they WASPs? Are
the Burches WASPs? Do we know?"
The general counsel of Tory Burch responded that he didn't
know how to answer the question, that Tory Burch is Jewish but
Christopher is not.
"Okay," Strine said. "But not Jewish doesn't make you a
WASP, because it could make you an equally excluded faith like
Catholic, right? I mean, that's not a WASP. You know, a WASP is
a WASP.... I think you're going to have to have interrogatories
about who's a WASP. And I'll certainly be attacked as
anti-WASP.... I'm bringing actually Rodman Ward, Jr. (of
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom) in as my expert because I
always used to tell Rod that he actually had a lineage chart in
his basement which had all of the DuPont family trees on it (in
order) to determine how (people) were actually related to the
DuPont family. So I think we might be able to have some unique
experts in Delaware."
Yes, folks, this is going to be a very interesting case.
(Reporting by Alison Frankel)
Follow us on Twitter @AlisonFrankel, @ReutersLegal | Like us on Facebook