Delaware Chancery Court uses little-known power, issues arrest warrant for party in corporate case
For the first time in decades and possibly its entire 220-year history, one of the nation’s top business courts has exercised a little-known power.
Delaware’s Court of Chancery this week issued an arrest warrant for a party in a civil business dispute, reports the News Journal.
“We have never done this before,” Ken Lagowski, who has worked for the court nearly 30 years, told the newspaper. Lagowski, who serves as office manager for the Register in Chancery, said this may be the first time the court has ever issued such a warrant.
To figure out how to proceed, he said, chancery court staff checked with counterparts in the state’s superior court for information about how to issue a warrant and enter it into the justice information system.
The warrant for the arrest of Huey Shen Wu of Newark, Del., and Taiwan, was issued by Vice Chancellor Donald Parsons Jr. Wu is a defendant in a trade-secrets case filed by his former employer, W. L. Gore and Associates. Although the company contends he may have made millions by misappropriating its confidential information, Wu has previously appeared in the chancery case and said in bankruptcy filings last year that he has been stripped of funds by the cost of defending himself in the trade secrets case.
The News Journal could not reach Wu at a phone number for him listed in court documents, and a lawyer for Gore says he believes the research scientist may have fled to Taiwan.
Wu, who left the company in 2004, worked on its trademarked Gore-Tex polymer fabrics. The company contends that he has been using its trade secrets in marketing medical, military and outdoor clothing in China and Taiwan.
