Episode 24: Corporate Oppression Doctrine Meets Sex Discrimination: A Conversation with Professor Meredith Miller
Episode 23: LLCs as They Approach the 50-Year Milestone: A Conversation with Professor Susan Pace Hamill
Litigation developments: core M&A and corporate governance doctrines
PODCAST: Williams Mullen GovCon Perspectives - Why Was My SWaM Certification Denied, and What Can I Do?
Episode 8: Minority Oppression in the LLC: Interview With Professor Douglas Moll
Episode 10: The Marketability Discount Revisited: Interview with Greg Barber
The M&A Word of the Day® from the Book of Jargon® – Global Mergers & Acquisitions Is Squeeze Out
The Delaware Court of Chancery, in Palkon v. Maffei, et al., C.A. No. 2023-0449-JTL (Del. Ch. Feb. 20, 2024), determined that a reduction in the liability exposure of a fiduciary due to the conversion of a Delaware...more
Nov 2023 In August 2021, the BVI Commercial Court handed down judgment on liability in favour of the Claimants against seven directors of Vanway for carrying out a fraud on the minority shareholders, in selling the assets of...more
Occasionally, we come across court cases in which the majority owners so egregiously mistreated their minority co-owners that it’s difficult not to write about it — if only as a lesson in what not to do to separate oneself as...more
Executive Summary- A recent Delaware Court of Chancery post-trial decision, In re Straight Path Communications, is another example of: • “fair price” immunizing “unfair process” in the “entire fairness” analysis, and - •...more
Earlier this year, using as a springboard the Maryland intermediate appellate court’s decision in Eastland Food Corp. v Mekhaya, I posted about a topic on which there’s little or no New York law, viz., whether a complaint for...more
The mere potential for a prominent, highly respected officer, director and minority holder to influence a board’s decision to approve a deal where the minority holder sits on both sides is insufficient to confer controller...more
There are many ways that an owner of a closely-held business can use their superior financial resources to gain an advantage over their co-owners in a dispute. One common way is the use of a capital call provision to dilute...more
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
Last autumn, the Court of Appeal held that actions taken by majority shareholders of a company, asking directors to resign, were not unfairly prejudicial to the minority shareholders. In doing so, the court made some...more
When shareholders of a company believe the leaders of the company have breached their fiduciary duties to it, they can bring a lawsuit against those leaders in one of two ways. Shareholders can bring the suit in their own...more
In this edition of Dechert’s Securities & Derivative Litigation Quarterly Update, we examine: (1) the Delaware Court of Chancery’s latest post-trial decision showing how the special committee process is critical in the...more
David F. Johnson co-presented “Minority Investor Rights in Private Companies: Buy-Sell Agreements, Court-Ordered Buyouts, Breach of Fiduciary Duty” for a nationwide audience for Stafford Webinars on January 20, 2021. David...more
In In re Tilray, Inc. Reorganization Litigation (C.A. No. 2020-137-KSJM (Del. Ch. June 1, 2021)), the minority shareholders of Tilray, Inc. alleged that the defendants breached their fiduciary duties by entering a...more
The New York Court of Appeals’ 2012 opinion in Pappas v Tzolis, decided in the wake and spirit of that court’s rulings the year before in the Centro Empresarial v America Movil and Arfa v Zamir cases, raised the bar for...more
A Win for Deal Certainty, Delaware Court of Chancery Orders Closing of Cake Supplier Acquisition; Under Armour to Pay $9M to Settle SEC Charges Involving Disclosure Failures; First Circuit Upholds Decision Applying Federal...more
Of late I’ve been ruminating on New York’s membership in the shrinking pool of states that don’t recognize oppression of an LLC minority member by the controlling members or managers as ground for judicial dissolution....more
What is a Close Corporation? Under Ohio law, a “close corporation” is defined as a corporation with a relatively small number of shareholders, whose shares are generally not traded on national securities exchanges or...more
Under Texas law, when the owners of closely held companies have co-investors, they need to exercise care in managing their business. This need for caution is due in large part to a Texas statute that makes it easier for...more
A claim for aiding and abetting a breach of fiduciary duty fails if a plaintiff cannot allege an underlying breach. In that circumstance there is no breach to aid and abet. Where a plaintiff sufficiently alleges a breach,...more
A minority shareholder petitioning for dissolution under BCL § 1104-a must establish, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the majority shareholders have engaged in “illegal, fraudulent or oppressive actions,” (BCL §...more
In Katz v. Intel Pharma, LLC, a minority member of a limited liability company sued a former manager for breach of fiduciary duty in a derivative action. No. H-18-1347, 2020 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 120389 (S.D. Tex. July 9, 2020)....more
In Skye Mineral Investors LLC v. DXS Capital (U.S.) Limited, et al., the Delaware Court of Chancery (the “Court”) denied defendants’ motion to dismiss, finding that plaintiffs had sufficiently pled a breach by the members...more
The prior discussion, Determining a Remedy After Oppression or Breach of Fiduciary Duty (Part 4), presented a listing of the potential remedies on a finding of a breach of duty and oppression. Frequently, the animosity among...more
Gilbert v. Perlman, C.A. No. 2018-0453-SG (Del. Ch. Apr. 29, 2020) - Delaware law imposes fiduciary duties upon controlling stockholders who use their power to control the corporate machinery. For that reason, determining...more
One of the hallmarks of limited liability companies ("LLCs") is that members of an LLC ordinarily do not owe fiduciary duties to each other or to the company itself. Generally speaking, a fiduciary duty is an obligation...more