Nonprofit Basics: Director Duties and Best Practices for the Typical Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation
Bar Exam Toolbox Podcast Episode 167: Listen and Learn -- Direct and Derivative Actions (Corporations)
Bar Exam Toolbox Podcast Episode 124: Listen and Learn -- Duty of Loyalty (Corporations)
Law School Toolbox Podcast Episode 282: Listen and Learn -- Duty of Loyalty (Corporations)
In re McDonald's Corp. Stockholder Derivative Litig., CA No. 2021-0324-JTL (Del. Ch. March 1, 2023) - A plaintiff can plead an oversight claim against a board by alleging particularized facts to support an inference that...more
In a far-reaching decision with significant implications, the Delaware Chancery Court recently issued a decision confirming that Caremark duty of oversight obligations extends to senior officers. This will have an immediate...more
On January 25, 2023, Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery denied a motion to dismiss a derivative suit brought by stockholders asserting breach of fiduciary duty claims against a former officer...more
On January 25, 2023, in In re McDonald’s Corporation Stockholder Derivative Litigation, Vice Chancellor Travis Laster of Delaware’s Court of Chancery denied a motion to dismiss a derivative lawsuit against David Fairhurst,...more
On November 30, 2022, Vice Chancellor Glasscock of the Delaware Court of Chancery granted a motion to dismiss claims asserted against directors who served as members of the special committee (the “Special Committee”) of...more
What should our board do first when served with a stockholder demand under Rule 23.1? • Directors must determine the legal, financial and factual issues relevant to the board’s response. ...more
Recent rulings underscore the attention boards of directors and management must continue to pay to the risks faced by companies across all sectors of the economy and their potential impact on business operations...more
In 1996, the Delaware Court of Chancery issued its seminal decision in In re Caremark International Inc. Derivative Litigation, establishing the conditions for director oversight liability under Delaware law. Adopted a decade...more
Investors filed a derivative suit claiming that the company knew about, and failed to mitigate known, existing cybersecurity risks and shortfalls prior to the security breach. In early November, pension funds and...more
Special committees, by design, are created to address conflicts and to insulate the board of directors from liability for the very conflicts that may invite judicial scrutiny of the fairness of the board’s decision. A...more
In a 200+ page decision, the Court of Chancery in In re Pattern Energy Group Inc. Stockholders Litigation, (C.A. No. 2020-0357-MTZ (Del. Ch. May 6, 2021)) declined to dismiss putative shareholder class claims for breach of...more
In In re USG Corp. S’holder Litig., 2020 WL 5126671 (Del. Ch. Aug. 31, 2020), the Court of Chancery granted the director-defendants’ motions to dismiss post-closing money damages claims arising out of the sale of USG...more
On April 27, 2020, the Delaware Court of Chancery for the third time in a year denied a motion to dismiss a Caremark claim. The case, Hughes v. Hu, involves a derivative claim against the audit committee and officers of a...more
In Salladay v. Lev, the Delaware Chancery Court elaborated on how early a corporate board must take protective measures to shield a conflicted transaction from entire fairness review. Salladay involved a motion to dismiss a...more
On February 26, 2020, Skadden held a webinar titled “Reevaluating the Board Risk Oversight Process: Implications of Marchand and Other Recent Developments.” The panelists were Edward Micheletti, litigation partner and...more
In High River Ltd. P’ship v. Occidental Petroleum Corp., No. CV 2019-0403-JRS, 2019 WL 6040285 (Del. Ch. Nov. 14, 2019), the Court of Chancery of the state of Delaware recently refused to hold that Section 220 books and...more
In a recent post-trial opinion, Vice Chancellor Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery issued an important decision regarding stockholder books and records demands under Section 220(b) of the Delaware General Corporation...more
Following Corwin v. KKR Financial Holdings and other Delaware cases that have reinforced the standards that stockholder suits must meet to survive dismissal, would-be litigants have increasingly invoked Section 220 of the...more
In Marchand v. Barnhill, a unanimous Delaware Supreme Court imposed substantial new procedural expectations on corporate directors to satisfy their fiduciary duty of oversight related to material risk areas and legal...more
The following update highlights recent corporate governance hot topics and trends for directors of public companies. Board Oversight of Mission-Critical Risks - In June 2019, the Delaware Supreme Court allowed a Caremark...more
The Delaware Supreme Court recently sounded a warning bell for directors, reminding that as part of their duty of loyalty, they “must make a good faith effort to implement an oversight system and then monitor it.” The case...more
In Marchand v. Barnhill, No. 533, 2018, 2019 Del. LEXIS 310 (Del. June 18, 2019), the Delaware Supreme Court (Strine, C.J.) reversed a Delaware Court of Chancery (Slights, V.C.) order dismissing a derivative claim alleging...more
Summer is usually the best time of year for ice cream companies, but the season is off to a rough start for Blue Bell Creameries, USA, Inc. The Delaware Supreme Court, in Marchand v. Barnhill, held on June 18 that a suit...more
The Delaware Supreme Court recently took the opportunity to revisit Caremark with its en banc decision in Marchand v. Barnhill, No. 533, 2018 (Del. June 19, 2019). In Marchand, the Court reversed the dismissal of a...more
In Marchand v. Barnhill et al. (“Blue Bell”),1 the Delaware Supreme Court on June 19 unanimously reversed the dismissal of a shareholder derivative lawsuit against the members of the board of directors and two officers of...more