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On March 7, 2017, the Delaware Chancery Court granted a motion to dismiss in In re Columbia Pipeline Group, Inc. Shareholder Litigation, which capped a line of cases starting with Corwin v. KKR Financial Holdings LLC and continued with …
M&A activity generally declined in February 2017, both globally and in the U.S. Total deal volume, as measured by dollar value, decreased globally by 30.1% to $202.45 billion, and in the U.S. by 3.7% to $106.47 billion. The number of …
The practice of nominal shareholder plaintiffs challenging virtually every sizable corporate merger with a lawsuit alleging a fiduciary breach has been a scandal for some time. At least when brought by the “bottom fishers” of the plaintiff’s bar, these suits …
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 …
Mergers and acquisitions (“M&A”) of bank holding companies (“BHCs”) and banks are subject to lengthy and sometimes unpredictable regulatory scrutiny and application processing between signing and closing. Bank M&A applications are subject to numerous regulatory risks, including preexisting conditions that …
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 …
M&A activity in January 2017 showed mixed results, with the global M&A market generally down and the U.S. M&A market generally up. Total deal volume as measured by dollar value decreased globally by 26.9% to $280.97 billion, but increased in …
On February 3, 2017, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC or Commission) released the findings of its “Merger Remedy Study” (the FTC Study) which examined the effectiveness of Commission-required remedies in transactions from 2006 to 2012.[1] The FTC Study—its …
On January 13, 2017, the Internal Revenue Service (the “IRS”) and the Treasury Department (the “Treasury”) published new final and temporary regulations (the “New Regulations”) and issued a notice of proposed rulemaking by cross-reference to the temporary regulations that address …
If 2008 through 2010 were years of tumult and recession in U.S. financing markets, and 2011 through 2015 years of recovery and growth, marked by ever-lower yields and record-setting financing activity even in the face of new compliance regimes, 2016 …
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 …
After the spike in activity due to megadeals in October, M&A activity returned in November to more normalized levels both in deal volume and number of deals. Total deal volume in the U.S. and globally declined in November 2016, by …
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 …
M&A volume in October 2016 increased to record levels, as measured by total dollar value, largely due to a spike in the number of megadeals, with eight October deals valued at or above $10 billion dollars. Total deal volume in …
M&A activity in September 2016 rebounded across most metrics as compared to August 2016, both in the U.S. and globally. In the U.S., total deal volume increased by 18.9% to $129.08 billion and average deal value increased by 24.7% to …
In the controversial practice of appraisal arbitrage, activist investors buy shares of a corporation to be acquired by merger so as to assert appraisal rights challenging the merger price – which may already have been approved by the target’s stockholders. …
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 …
Skadden and Erskine Chambers recently hosted a series of comparative corporate law events in conjunction with the University of Pennsylvania Law School; Queen Mary University of London School of Law; New York University School of Law; Wachtell, Lipton Rosen & …
As discussed in prior posts on the Cleary M&A and Corporate Governance Watch blog, recent applications of the Delaware Supreme Court’s decision in Corwin v. KKR Financial Holdings, 125 A.3d 304 (Del. 2015) have emphasized the high bar …
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 …