In a letter ruling, the Delaware Chancery Court held that where neither the target nor the acquiror was a Delaware entity, the transaction documents between the parties could not confer jurisdiction in the Chancery Court...more
On March 22, 2023, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed a complaint in US District Court for the Southern District of New York against Justin Sun, the owner of BitTorrent, Inc., a file-sharing platform; three...more
The fiduciary duty of care has become more aspirational than a real legal basis for potential director liability in M&A in the Age of DGCL Section 102(b)(7), Corwin v. KKR Financial Holdings LLC (Del. 2015) and In re Volcano...more
The Situation: A Delaware court recently found that a board breached its fiduciary duties by bowing to activist pressure and engaging in a sale rather than continuing the business as a going concern. The Case: In re PLX...more
On March 15, 2018, the Supreme Court of Delaware affirmed the Delaware Court of Chancery’s dismissal of a putative stockholder class action asserting claims for breach of fiduciary duty and quasi-appraisal against the...more
Developments in appraisal law, the application of Corwin v. KKR Financial Holdings LLC in post-closing damages actions and the potential expansion of Kahn v. M&F Worldwide Corporation (MFW) — a case examining the standard of...more
Following yesterday’s post concerning the status of Revlon duties in California, I received a note from Suzanne Weakley, an attorney at the California Continuing Education of the BAR (aka the CEB). For those readers not...more
There are certain seminal Delaware corporate law cases that are so well known that corporate lawyers are wont to assume that they have been adopted and followed everywhere. One such case is Revlon, Inc. v. MacAndrews &...more
Two recent decisions from the Delaware Court of Chancery faithfully apply the Delaware Supreme Court’s holding in Corwin v. KKR Financial Holdings LLC. No surprise there. Corwin held that when “a transaction not subject to...more
Thirty years ago, the Delaware Supreme Court issued two seminal opinions concerning how courts ought to review director decisionmaking in merger and acquisition transactions. In the first case, Unocal Corporation v. Mesa...more
The plaintiffs in In Re Volcano Corp. Stockholder Litigation were former public stockholders of a company that was acquired for $18 per share in an all-cash merger. Just five months prior, the target company had declined an...more
On November 30, 2015, the Delaware Supreme Court issued an opinion affirming the Court of Chancery’s decision in In re Rural/Metro Corporation Stockholders Litigation. In the earlier decisions, the Court of Chancery found...more
This is an important decision that reverses a prior opinion in the same case. The Court did so because after it issued its prior opinion, the Delaware Supreme Court issued its Corwin decision holding that when a merger is...more
In an October 1st decision (In re Zale Corporation), the Delaware Chancery Court dismissed claims that Zale Corporation’s directors breached their fiduciary duties in connection with Zale’s agreement to merge with Signet. ...more
The Delaware Supreme Court recently issued an opinion, captioned Corwin v. KKR Financial Holdings LLC, that sheds further light on when a stockholder owning less than 50% of the voting power of a company may be deemed a...more
In an October 2, 2015 decision, Corwin, et al. v. KKR Financial Holdings LLC., et al., the Delaware Supreme Court clarified that once a merger closes, as long as it has been approved by a fully informed vote of the...more
This Glossary contains many of the important terms and definitions used in the M&A world. The Glossary is not exhaustive, however. Like most areas of the law, M&A is a highly complex subject that involves several legal and...more
Public companies incorporated in Delaware frequently adopt a charter provision, pursuant to 8 Del. C. § 102(b)(7), that insulates their directors from monetary damages for breaches of the fiduciary duty of care. Those...more
Last month, in In re: Family Dollar Stores, Inc. Stockholder Litigation, a Delaware Chancery judge rejected the efforts of certain shareholders of Family Dollar Stores, Inc., to prevent Family Tree’s shareholders from voting...more
When a Delaware corporation engages in a sale of control transaction, its board's obligation is to obtain the highest value reasonably attainable. This obligation, often referred to as Revlon duties, may be fulfilled as long...more
On December 19, 2014, the Supreme Court of Delaware reversed the Delaware Court of Chancery's November decision to preliminarily enjoin for 30 days a vote by C&J Energy Services stockholders on a merger with Nabors Red Lion...more
On December 19, 2014, the Delaware Supreme Court, in C&J Energy Services, Inc. v. City of Miami General Employees' & Sanitation Employees' Retirement Trust, issued a strongly worded decision refusing to enjoin a change of...more
On November 27, 2012, a bench ruling by Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery in In re Complete Genomics, Inc. Shareholder Litigation enjoined the enforcement of a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Waive”...more
The Delaware Court of Chancery recently ruled that a company's board of directors is vested with discretion to choose between competing buyout offers — even if the ultimate choice is favorable to the personal interests of the...more