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

After Twitter sued Elon Musk for not buying the social media platform, many experts started analysing the possible case outcomes.

Now, when the judge for the case has been finally assigned, chances are Musk will have to buy the company. She is known for being one of the few jurists who has ever ordered a reluctant buyer to close a U.S. corporate merger in a case similar to Twitter's situation.

Kathaleen McCormick took over the role of chancellor or chief judge of the Court of Chancery last year becoming the first woman in that role. On Wednesday, she was assigned the Twitter lawsuit, which seeks to force Musk to complete his deal for the social media platform.

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

According to legal experts, judges have always been reluctant to order the closure of mergers and have taken the side of the complainant only few times.

Last year, McCormick got the attention of Wall Street dealmakers by ordering an affiliate of private equity firm Kohlberg & Co LLC to close its $550 million purchase of DecoPac Holding Inc, which makes cake decorating products.

Reuters believes that case has many parallels to the Twitter deal. Like Musk, Kohlberg said it was pulling out because DecoPac violated the merger agreement and like Musk, Kohlberg argued in part that DecoPac failed to maintain ordinary operations.

However, Musk's deal is different in many ways. First of all, it is much bigger and involves a publicly traded company.