Sky Blog
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 …
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 …
On January 22, 2016, the Delaware Court of Chancery signaled the demise of “disclosure-only” settlements in M&A stockholder lawsuits with its decision in In re Trulia, Inc. Stockholder Litigation.[1] Arguing that the “optimal means by which disclosure claims …
An M&A appraisal case before the Delaware Supreme Court has drawn amicus briefs from two groups of esteemed professors — including three from Columbia Law School — with opposing views on how a company should be valued.
The case involves …
The Delaware Supreme Court requested further consideration of the federal due-process issues that might arise where a court is asked to hold that a shareholder derivative action is precluded because a prior derivative action was dismissed based on the first …
“Reputation matters” is by now almost a mantra. Scholars of commercial law increasingly refer to reputational concerns as important forces that shape our behavior – a “system of control” of sorts. The idea – backed by mounting empirical evidence – …
There is a general perception that statutory appraisal challenges have been on the rise over the past several years. The Delaware Court of Chancery has issued a number of opinions during that time that use the merger price minus synergies …
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 …
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 …
Of all the social and economic challenges to the current state of Delaware corporate law, perhaps the most potentially revolutionary is the shift in attitudes about the very purpose of corporations. Delaware corporate law holds as a core precept that …
To read influential corporate lawyers, legal academics, and jurists, shareholders are an alarmingly myopic bunch who demand that corporate directors and managers make short-term decisions that sacrifice long-term value. The group receiving the most scolding of late is hedge fund …
On September 29, in the case of Palmer v. Reali, the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware confronted claims that two corporate officers engaged in conduct that breached their fiduciary duties and eventually led to the bankruptcy …
In In re Books-A-Million, Inc. Stockholders Litigation, the Delaware Court of Chancery dismissed the fiduciary duty claims of former minority stockholders following a going-private, squeeze-out merger because the transaction satisfied the framework to invoke business judgment review as approved …
Hedge fund activism is to corporate law’s early 21st century what the hostile takeover was to its late 20th century. Like the hostile takeover, activism threatens incumbent managers and disrupts their business plans by successfully appealing to the shareholders’ interest …
Earlier this year, Gibson Dunn published the latest installment of its annual Transnational Litigation Update. See 2015 Year-End Transnational Litigation Update (February 17, 2016, accessible here). This Mid-Year Update expands on certain key issues addressed by the 2015 Update, …
In Larkin v. Shah, issued on August 25, the Delaware Court of Chancery dismissed a stockholder challenge to a merger due to the cleansing effect of fully informed stockholder approval, applying the Delaware Supreme Court’s recent Corwin v. KKR Financial …
Since 2010, 30 states and the District of Columbia have passed legislation authorizing for-profit “public benefit corporations” (“PBC”), known in many states just as “benefit corporations.”[1] Although these laws vary slightly by state, each requires the board of directors …
Contractarians, who believe that fiduciary relationships are a species of contract, and anti-contractarians, who believe those relationships are sui generis, have long debated what fiduciary duties are and how they should be applied. Contractarians frame the fiduciary duty as one …
Companies confer the title of “Vice President” on a wide range of employees, from senior executives, in some cases, to line-level personnel, in others. While distinguishing someone functioning as a senior executive from someone in a lower-level position may be …
On May 6, 2016, the Delaware Supreme Court affirmed the Delaware Chancery Court’s ruling that Zale Corporation’s sale to Signet Jewelers withstood scrutiny under the business judgment rule because the transaction was approved by a fully-informed, uncoerced vote of the …