Columbia Law School
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Delaware Chancery
The Best Corporate Law Judge of His Generation
Twenty some years before Bill Allen was appointed Chancellor of Delaware, Bayless Manning, a fine corporate law scholar, announced the death of corporate law “as a field of intellectual effort.” Manning described its focus as “our great empty corporation statutes …
To Bill Allen: A Final Tribute
Last weekend the corporate legal community lost one of its finest: former Delaware Chancellor and Professor at New York University School of Law, William T. Allen. For 12 years Bill Allen and I served together as judicial colleagues on the …
Modern ESG Activism and Past Civil Rights Activism Compared
The embrace of shareholder activism as a tool to bring about broad social change is a welcome development. It reflects a trend of outsourcing public functions and values to private actors and stems in part from a frustration with interest …
Gibson Dunn Discusses Delaware Chancery Decision on Advance Notice Bylaws
In an important transcript ruling issued on August 14,[1] the Delaware Court of Chancery upheld the validity and vitality of advance notice bylaw provisions, which govern the timing and disclosure requirements of stockholder nominations of board candidates. The ruling …
Arnold & Porter Discusses Significant 2018 Decisions Affecting Private Company M&A
The following compilation is our fifth annual review of significant state court decisions relevant for private company M&A transactions and related governance matters and disputes. The summary includes the landmark Akorn v. Fresenius decision, which is the first Delaware …
Skadden on Delaware Chancery’s Rejection of Forum Selection Limits on Securities Act Claims
On December 19, 2018, the Delaware Court of Chancery held that forum selection provisions contained in the certificate of incorporation of Delaware corporations are invalid to the extent that they require any claim under the Securities Act of 1933 to …
Debevoise Discusses Delaware Chancery Ruling on a Material Adverse Event
On October 1, the Delaware Court of Chancery, in a record-breaking 246-page opinion, held that Fresenius Kabi AG (a German publicly listed healthcare company) did not have to consummate its proposed acquisition of Akorn, Inc. (a Nasdaq-listed generic pharmaceutical company) …
Is Delaware Asleep at the Wheel (Again)?
Beginning at least as far back as Professor William Carey’s famously withering 1974 Yale Law Journal article about Delaware’s “enabling” of bad corporate actors, critics of the state’s corporate jurisprudence have alluded to a “race to the bottom” in which …
Fried Frank Discusses Key Delaware Decisions on M&A and Corporate Governance
New Risk of Below-Deal-Price in Appraisal Results
Last quarter, the Delaware courts issued the first post-Dell appraisal decisions—Aruba and AOL (issued by the Court of Chancery) and SWS Group (issued by the Delaware Supreme Court, affirming the Court …
Columbia Law School to Hold 2018 M&A and Corporate Governance Conference in New York City
On April 20, 2018, Columbia Law School will hold its 2018 Mergers & Acquisitions and Corporate Governance Conference at Convene in midtown Manhattan. The event is co-sponsored by the law firms Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & …
Gibson Dunn Updates Securities Litigation for First Half of 2017
The first half of 2017 brought with it a nearly unprecedented rate of new filings (a pace few predicted), as well as several important developments in the securities laws. Among other things, the U.S. Supreme Court decided to weigh in …
Paul Weiss Discusses Dismissal of Breach of Fiduciary Duty Claims
In In re Massey Energy Company Derivative and Class Action Litigation, the Delaware Court of Chancery recently dismissed shareholders’ derivative and putative direct claims alleging that Massey’s former directors and officers caused the company to willfully disregard safety regulations. …
Shearman & Sterling Discusses the Cleansing Effect of Stockholder Ratification
It has long been a policy of corporate law1 that the informed business decisions of independent and disinterested directors are protected by the presumption of the business judgment rule.2 Courts are reluctant to second-guess decisions that are made …
Blue Sky Banter: Travis Laster on Appraisal Rights
The Delaware Chancery Court’s vice chancellor speaks with Reynolds Holding about Dell, DFC Global and appraisal actions, which allow holdout shareholders who didn’t vote for a deal to ask the court to set a higher price for their stock. The …
Skadden Analyzes Two Important Deal Litigation Cases from Delaware Chancery
In In re Chelsea Therapeutics International LTD Stockholders Litigation, Vice Chancellor Sam Glasscock III of the Delaware Court of Chancery dismissed claims that Chelsea Therapeutics International Ltd.’s (Chelsea) board of directors acted in bad faith by selling Chelsea to …
Skadden Discusses Delaware’s Corwin Case and the High Bar for Post-Closing Damages
The Delaware Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Corwin v. KKR Financial Holdings LLC, 125 A.3d 304 (Del. 2015) articulated a new defendant-friendly rule for post-closing damages actions for breaches of fiduciary duties. The Delaware Supreme Court held that where a …