I heard that of those
four, only Potter Anderson returned Hutton's retainer; the others kept
what they'd been paid even though they failed to charter the bank.
3: Paragraph 16 Then Hutton hired the Wilmington office of Skadden,
Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, by some measures the biggest law firm in
the country, and certainly preeminent in corporation law. Two of
Skadden's senior partners were Rodman Ward Jr. and Irving S. Shapiro.
Ward is a formidable lawyer who coauthors one of the leading treatises
on corporation law; he's also an interesting person, but he's so smart
he sees what's coming so many moves ahead of where you are that it's
scary sometimes. Shapiro is either a fool or senile, but he used to be
du Pont's CEO, so he's an 800-pound gorilla in Delaware; if you want to
see what the Second Coming will be like, just watch how everybody here
acts around Shapiro. His value at Skadden is not his minimal ability as
a lawyer but his clout with the authorities.
3: Paragraph 17 Shapiro first got the other banks in town, and their
Delaware Bankers' Association, to back off in their opposition to
letting Hutton in, and then he got Delaware's Bank Commissioner John E.
Malarkey to grant Hutton two applications: one for a bank and the second
for the Trust Company. Hutton Bank never did much, but Hutton
considered using it in several packages that didn't get off the drawing
board; we discussed such plans as having it lend money to customers who
would then use that money to buy stock or insurance from Hutton, either
directly or through trusts at Hutton, for example.
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