In this episode, UVA Law 3Ls Bridget Boyd and Jenn Scoler join me to interview Nathan B. Oman, the W. Taylor Reveley III Research Professor and Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Law and Markets at William & Mary School of Law. Nate specializes in Contract Law, the Economic Analysis of Law, Jurisprudence, Law and Religion, and Legal History. Today, we’re discussing his 2009 article, Specific Performance and the Thirteenth Amendment, published in the Minnesota Law Review.
The article first came to my attention this summer, when the internet erupted with suggestions that the specific performance clause in the Elon Musk (more precisely, X Holdings) merger agreement with Twitter wasn’t enforceable because of the 13th Amendment. As you’ll hear in this episode, Nate is having none of that.
I’ve split my discussion with Nate into two parts. In this Part, largely driven by questions from Bridget and Jenn, we discuss the Musk-Twitter litigation and the various provisions of the merger agreement, including the specific performance provision and the termination fee. If you’re covering that litigation in class this year, in my completely and wholly unbiased view , the episode makes a really nice introduction for students to some of the issues.
Links:
Nathan B. Oman faculty bio https://law2.wm.edu/faculty/bios/fulltime/nboman.php
Nathan B. Oman, Specific Performance and the Thirteenth Amendment, 93 MINN. L. REV. 2020 (2009). https://www.minnesotalawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Oman_MLR.pdf
Amendment and Plan of Merger by and among X Holdings I, Inc., X Holdings II, Inc. and Twitter, Inc. dated as of April 25, 2022 https://kimberlydkrawiec.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Musk-Twitter-Agreement.pdf