Transperfect Global, Inc., et al. v. Robert Pincus

This case involves the First Amendment freedom to petition, the demands of due process, and courts’ contempt powers. Petitioner TransPerfect Global, Inc. (“TPG”) was one member of protracted, complex corporate litigation in Delaware. Eventually, TPG, by then a Nevada corporation, filed a lawsuit in Nevada alleging a breach of fiduciary duty by Robert Pincus, whom Delaware had appointed as a director of TPG and as custodian of a judicially enforced sale of half of TPG’s shares, and seeking a declaratory judgment on TPG’s rights and responsibilities vis-à-vis Pincus. Pincus responded by seeking to hold TPG and its cofounder and owner, petitioner Robert Shawe, in contempt. The Delaware Court of Chancery, relying on several different provisions of different orders whose relationship to one another was not selfevident, held both TPG and Shawe in contempt for TPG’s filing of the lawsuit in Nevada. The Delaware Supreme Court reversed the part of the decision holding Shawe in contempt (as he was not a party to the Nevada action), but affirmed the rest of the contempt order against TPG, including the sanctions imposed as a result of having filed a lawsuit in Nevada seeking a judicial declaration of rights. The question presented is: Whether holding TPG in contempt because it filed a lawsuit in Nevada unconstitutionally burdened TPG’s First Amendment right to petition.