The 2013 Amendments to the Delaware General Corporation Law
Following other recent decisions addressing the applicability and scope of Kahn v. M&F Worldwide Corp. (“MFW”), including In re Match Group Inc., Derivative Litigation and Tornetta v. Musk, on May 1, 2024, the Delaware...more
Delaware Court of Chancery Denies Motion to Dismiss in Shareholder Class Action Lawsuit Related to Mindbody Inc.’s Billion Dollar Merger with Vista Equity Partners; Second Circuit Unanimously Affirms Lower Court’s Decision...more
On February 27, the Delaware Court of Chancery issued important guidance to boards of directors seeking to utilize special committees of disinterested and independent directors to insulate themselves from fiduciary liability...more
Consistent with trends in recent years, in 2019 Delaware corporation law largely was shaped by post-closing suits for money damages against directors who had approved mergers and acquisitions. Two Delaware Supreme Court...more
The Delaware Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Corwin v. KKR Financial Holdings LLC1 fashioned a powerful defense in post-closing money damages cases for boards of directors by finding that business judgment deference applies...more
Under Corwin v. KKR Financial Holdings LLC1 and its progeny, “when disinterested, fully informed, uncoerced stockholders approve a transaction absent a looming conflicted controller,” the irrebuttable business judgment rule...more
Most directors and officers are aware of Section 144 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which provides that a corporate transaction involving an interested director or officer is not void solely because of that reason,...more
On August 18, 2017, the Delaware Court of Chancery granted defendants’ motion to dismiss a class action brought by former minority stockholders of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. (“MSLO”) against Martha Stewart and...more
This is a significant decision because it is the first to find that a stockholder vote did not invoke business judgment review under Corwin because the vote was coerced and not fully informed. Under Corwin, a transaction...more
On March 7, 2017, Vice Chancellor Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery dismissed the action In re Columbia Pipeline Group, Inc., C.A. No.12152-VCL. Stockholders of Columbia Pipeline Group, Inc. (“CPG”) claimed that CPG’s...more
As previously reported in Insights: The Delaware Edition, 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...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
A trio of opinions from the Delaware Supreme Court, each authored by Chief Justice Leo E. Strine, Jr., has reaffirmed Delaware’s deference to the business judgment of disinterested corporate decision-makers and restored...more
Corporate directors are permitted to, and regularly do, set their own compensation. This has not been controversial because boards have typically taken seriously their responsibility to set compensation that is reasonable and...more
Corporate directors routinely make decisions regarding their own compensation. If challenged by stockholders, such decisions are generally reviewed by Delaware courts under the onerous "entire fairness" standard, which...more
Companies cannot merely rely upon shareholder approval to obtain protection under the business judgment rule. While the courts in Delaware do frequently apply the standard of waste to claims of breach of fiduciary duty and...more
In Kahn v. M&F Worldwide Corp., the Delaware Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the Court of Chancery’s decision that the more deferential business judgment rule standard of review, rather than an entire fairness standard of...more
On May 29, 2013, the Delaware Chancery Court (Strine, C.) held that when a controlling stockholder merger has, from the time of the controller’s first overture, been subject to (1) negotiation and approval by a special...more