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Breach of Duty Corporate Counsel

Bennett Jones LLP

Delaware Court Affirms High Threshold for Breach of Directors' Caremark Duties

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In a recent case, Bricklayers Pension Fund of Western Pennsylvania (derivatively on behalf of Centene Corporation) v Brinkley (Centene), Delaware's Court of Chancery dismissed “Caremark duty claims”—named after the 1996 case...more

McCarter & English, LLP

Who Sins Most? The Tempter or the Tempted?—Court of Chancery Allocates Equal Fault Among Acquirer and Target Officers in Merger...

In In re Columbia Pipeline Group, Inc. Merger Litigation, C.A. No. 2018-0484-JTL, the Delaware Court of Chancery allocated liability among two sell-side officers and a third-party acquirer under the Delaware Uniform...more

Jones Day

Court of Chancery Grants Rare Motion to Dismiss Suit Governed by Entire Fairness Standard

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The electric vehicle company Canoo went public in a de-SPAC transaction in December 2020. After its stock price fell, a stockholder in the SPAC who chose not to redeem his stock sued the SPAC board and its controller for...more

King & Spalding

Delaware Chancery Court Issues Precedential Decision Dismissing Claims Challenging “De-SPAC” Merger Disclosures

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The Delaware Court of Chancery’s recent decision in In re Hennessy Capital Acquisition Corp. IV Stockholder Litigation,1 marks the Chancery Court’s first total dismissal of a complaint alleging breaches of fiduciary duties in...more

Mintz

Federal Judge Certifies Class Objecting to ESG Investments by Retirement Fund

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On May 22, 2024, Judge O'Connor (N.D. Tex.) ordered that the plaintiffs claiming that investment managers breached their fiduciary duty due to their ESG-focused investing be certified as a class for purposes of the...more

The Volkov Law Group

Episode 322 -- Checking in on Caremark Cases

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Over the last ten years, we have seen a marked shift from the Delaware Chancery Court chipping away at corporate board member liability claims. In a number of seminal cases involving Boeing airplane crashes (In re the Boeing...more

Morrison & Foerster LLP

Top 5 SEC Enforcement Developments for April 2024

Each month, we publish a roundup of the most important SEC enforcement developments for busy in-house lawyers and compliance professionals. This month, we examine: •The SEC’s first “Shadow Trading” trial; •SCOTUS’s...more

Morrison & Foerster LLP

Takeaways for In-House Counsel from the SEC’s “Shadow Insider Trading” Trial

On April 5, 2024, a jury in California federal court found a former corporate executive liable for insider trading in SEC v. Panuwat, a novel enforcement action involving a theory known as “shadow trading.” In Panuwat, the...more

Morgan Lewis

Delaware Court of Chancery Agrees with SLC, Dismisses $1 Billion Suit Against Carvana

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In the case of Carvana Co. Stockholders Litigation, the Delaware Court of Chancery followed the special litigation committee’s (SLC’s) recommendation and dismissed a stockholder complaint alleging that the company’s...more

Mintz - Bankruptcy & Restructuring Viewpoints

Delaware Bankruptcy Court Grants Derivative Standing to Creditors’ Committee to Sue Members and Officers of Delaware LLC

In early February, a Delaware bankruptcy judge set new precedent by granting a creditors’ committee derivative standing to pursue breach of fiduciary duty claims against a Delaware LLC’s members and officers. At least three...more

Mintz

Texas Court Rules ESG Lawsuit Against Employer's 401(k) Plan Can Proceed

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Recently, a Texas federal court denied the defendants' motion to dismiss in a lawsuit featuring allegations that an employer's 401(k) plan, which allegedly relied on ESG principles when making investments, violated ERISA. ...more

ArentFox Schiff

Airline 401k Decision Illustrates Continued Takeoff of ESG Litigation

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A Texas federal judge recently permitted an environmental, social, and governance- (ESG) related Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) case filed by an airline pilot against his employer and its benefits plan to...more

Goodwin

Delaware Court of Chancery Rescinds Elon Musk’s $55.8 Billion Compensation Package in Cautionary Tale About Director Independence...

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On January 30, 2024, the Chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery struck down the $55.8 billion compensation plan that Tesla, Inc.’s board of directors had granted to Tesla’s well-known CEO, Elon Musk, finding that the...more

Vinson & Elkins LLP

Delaware Supreme Court Decision Shows Continued Momentum for Caremark Plaintiffs

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A recent opinion from the Delaware Supreme Court could be viewed by some as expanding plaintiffs’ ability to viably plead a duty of oversight (or “Caremark”) claim against directors. In Lebanon County Employees’ Retirement...more

Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP

The Delaware Court of Chancery Confirms that Duty of Oversight Claims Against Corporate Officers Are Subject to the Same High...

In Segway Inc. v. Hong Cai, 2023 Del. Ch. LEXIS 643 (Del. Ch. Dec. 14, 2023), the Delaware Court of Chancery (Will, V.C.) dismissed a claim for breach of fiduciary duty brought by Segway Inc. (the “Company”) against its...more

Holland & Knight LLP

Podcast - Deberes fiduciarios de los administradores

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En el sexto episodio de "A Lo Legal En Par Minutos", nuestro socio Edwin Cortés Mejía conversa con Alba Malagón, socia del área corporativa, sobre los deberes fiduciaries de los administradores de una sociedad. Los abogados...more

Pillsbury - Policyholder Pulse blog

Say What You Mean: Delaware Court Finds Bump-Up Exclusion Ambiguous as Applied to Mergers Versus Acquisitions

Long a feature of directors’ and officers’ (D&O) liability insurance policies, the so-called “Bump-Up” Exclusion has gotten significant attention over the last few years. Because of the recent escalation in securities...more

Dechert LLP

Delaware Court of Chancery Awards Upwards of US$400 Million in Damages for Aiding and Abetting Claim Against Acquiror

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The Delaware Court of Chancery penned the latest chapter, on June 30, 2023, in a long-running dispute concerning TC Energy Corporation’s (“TransCanada”) July 2016 acquisition of Columbia Pipeline Group (“Columbia”), holding...more

Cooley LLP

Keeping Up With M&A Case Law – Spotlight on Recent Delaware Decisions

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The mergers & acquisitions market may wax and wane, but one thing in M&A is consistent from year to year: The Delaware courts issue opinions that impact M&A dealmaking. And this year is certainly no exception – Delaware...more

Hinshaw & Culbertson LLP

The Business Judgment Rule Saves Disney Officers and Directors in a Stockholder Records Action

Corporate activity related to ESG can have profound legal and market consequences. These consequences can be cut many ways. Although having taken a position on Florida legislation that resulted in negative business...more

A&O Shearman

First of its kind "derivative action" climate case falls at the first hurdle

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In a judgment handed down on 12 May 2023, the English High Court has refused permission for UK environmental NGO ClientEarth to continue “derivative claims” on behalf of Shell against its directors in connection with their...more

ArentFox Schiff

Fourth Circuit: Employers Can Enforce Fiduciary Duty Claims Against Employees Competing For New Contract

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In a case involving government contracts, the Fourth Circuit held that a company could proceed with its claims against three former employees for actions they took as employees – through their newly formed company - to pursue...more

ArentFox Schiff

Minority Owners May Be Able to Obtain Privileged Company Documents in Ownership Disputes

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When corporate management requests or obtains legal advice from corporate counsel, management expects those communications to be protected from disclosure by the attorney-client privilege, and usually they are. But there are...more

Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP

ERISA Litigation Roundup: Seventh Circuit Sets Forth Pleading Standard in ERISA Duty of Prudence Claims in Hughes v. Northwestern...

On March 23, 2023, the Seventh Circuit issued a long-awaited decision in Hughes v. Northwestern University, the case remanded from the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision of the same name. See Hughes v. Northwestern University, 142...more

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

ERISA Case Signals New Theories for Plaintiffs’ Bar

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Seyfarth Synopsis: After focusing most of its attention on retirement benefit plans, a recent complaint filed in the District of Connecticut shows that the plaintiffs’ bar is turning to health and welfare plans as targets for...more

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