Judge in Twitter v. Musk once ordered a deal to close

STORY: Twitter's $44 billion lawsuit against Elon Musk, who ditched his offer to buy the social media company, will be heard by a judge who has the rare distinction of being one of the few to ever order a reluctant buyer to close the deal.

The judge assigned to the lawsuit, which seeks to force Musk to buy Twitter, ruled in a similar case last year that an affiliate of private equity firm Kohlberg had to close its $550 million deal to buy DecoPac, a company that makes cake decorating products.

Chief judge Kathaleen McCormick, the first woman to hold in that role at the Delaware Court of Chancery, is also known for her serious, no-nonsense style and advocates respect among litigants.

That stands in sharp contrast to the brash and volatile style of Musk, who has been aiming a steady stream of mocking and confrontational tweets at Twitter of late.

The Kohlberg case has many parallels to the Twitter deal. Like Musk, Kohlberg claimed it was walking away because DecoPac violated the merger agreement.

But there are differences between the cases, too, as Musk's deal is magnitudes bigger and involves a publicly traded target company.

McCormick on Friday scheduled the first hearing for July 19 in Wilmington, where she will consider Twitter's request to expedite the case and conduct a four-day trial in September.