It will take more than a pandemic to shut down the lawyers. As the world economy grinds to a halt after a largely tranquil decade, boomtime excesses and over reach will slowly be revealed. Late Wednesday, SoftBank announced that it would not complete a $3bn tender offer for shares in WeCompany, the parent of US flexible offices group WeWork. Those tendering included WeWork co-founder, Adam Neumann, Benchmark Capital and company employees. 

The Japanese tech investor cited contractual conditions that it said had not been met. But the suspicion was that SoftBank, after already ploughing $14bn into the co-working space, was unenthusiastic about dumping more money into a concept that was floundering even before co-working was ended by coronavirus.

WeWork, unsurprisingly, said it was considering litigation to enforce what it thought was a done deal. The business, once valued at an absurd $47bn, remains private but its latest valuation, pre Covid-19, has shrunk below $10bn. Its bonds have now dropped to 35 cents on the dollar, signalling that the company may have no equity value whatsoever.