Whatever reasons Walt Disney thought they had to fire Michael Ovitz, they were not good enough to send him away without $140m in severance, the Delaware chancery court heard on Friday.

John Fox, an employment lawyer from California, said none of the former group president's failings during his brief stint at Disney in the mid-1990s rose to the level of the gross negligence or malfeasance stipulated in his contract if he were to be sacked summarily.