Sky Blog
In this blog post, I trace why my co-author Rob Ricca and I have concluded that the landmark 1986 Revlon ruling is, today, an insipid and remedially insignificant doctrine. Its overly exalted place in M&A law endures because it is …
The following post is based on a memo originally published by Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP on November 14, 2013 which can be found here.
Two recent Delaware Chancery Court opinions, issued on October 25 and November 9, 2013, …
In an article to be published this Spring in the DePaul Law Review, I argue that Delaware’s position as the center of corporate litigation has been rooted in two unique but unconstitutional approaches to personal jurisdiction over fiduciaries. Until Delaware …
Boards of public corporations have more independent directors than ever before. Sixty percent of boards of S&P 500 companies are not only majority independent, but have a single insider on the board: the CEO. While Jamie Dimon is still CEO …
Last week, the Delaware Court of Chancery ruled that an acquiring merger party obtains legal control of all of a target’s attorney-client communications, absent an express provision in a merger agreement to the contrary. Great Hill Equity Partners IV, LP …
The recent increase in the frequency and success with which “willful blindness” theories have been asserted in litigation may have long term implications for the corporate director’s liability profile.
Willful blindness is an aggressive liability theory that seeks to expand …
Harvard Law School Professor Lucian Bebchuk believes that shareholders should be able to control the material decisions of the companies they invest in. Over the years, he has written numerous articles expressing this view, including a 2005 article urging that …
James Matarese and Danielle Lauzon are M&A partners at Goodwin Procter LLP whose practices focus on technology and life sciences companies. Their recent representations include Onyx Pharmaceuticals in its merger with Amgen in a transaction valued at $10.4 billion.
On …
The US antitrust agencies receive an average of 25 Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) filings per week. During the current government shutdown, …
Recently, the Delaware legislature adopted and Delaware’s Governor signed into law several substantive amendments to the General Corporation Law of the State of Delaware (the DGCL), 8 Del. C. §§ 101 et seq.
New Provisions
Ratification of Defective Corporate …
Shuanghui International Holdings Limited (“Shuanghui”) and Smithfield Foods, Inc. (“Smithfield”) announced on Friday that the companies have received notice from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (“CFIUS”) that its national security review of the proposed acquisition by
The following comes to us from Charles M. Nathan, Partner and Head of Corporate Governance Practice at RLM Finsbury.
Activist investors are currently the darlings of the equity markets and the financial media. Many of the leading activist investors …
The following post comes to us from Brent J. Horton, assistant professor at Fordham University Gabelli School of Business.
In my recent article, The Going-Private Freeze-Out: A Unique Danger for Investors in Delaware Non-Corporate Business Associations,[1] I examine …
The following is a joint press release from six federal agencies on the revised credit risk retention rule, available here.
Six federal agencies on Wednesday issued a notice revising a proposed rule requiring sponsors of securitization transactions to retain …
The following comes to us from Mohsen Manesh, an Assistant Professor at the University of Oregon School of Law.
In the recently published The Geography of Revlon-Land,[1] Professor Stephen Bainbridge attempts to crisply delineate the boundaries …
The current proposals to accelerate the timing of beneficial ownership disclosure under Section 13(d) of the 1934 Securities Exchange Act and to broaden the definition of beneficial ownership to include derivative positions that provide economic exposure to stock price movement …
In a delightful essay, Ron Gilson and Jeff Gordon remind us that the times have changed and the Williams Act belongs in their view to the era of the Beatles. (Personally, I have trouble believing that Sgt. Pepper was really …
In an opinion issued on May 24, 2013,[1] the Delaware Supreme Court reaffirmed that an express contractual obligation to negotiate an agreement in good faith is enforceable and held that expectation damages[2] are available for breach of that obligation if
When the board of directors of a Delaware corporation begins a process that results in a change of control of the company (typically, a cash-out merger), the board’s Revlon duties are triggered: the directors then have a fiduciary obligation to …