In Texas Pacific Land Corporation v. Horizon Kinetics LLC, the Delaware Court of Chancery ruled in a post-trial opinion that investors violated a stockholders agreement by failing to vote in favor of a board proposal to...more
The Delaware courts issued a range of decisions this quarter, addressing topics from mootness fees to demand futility. Two key opinions addressed compliance with Delaware statute and court orders. In Seidman, the court...more
In Newman v. KKR, the Delaware Court of Chancery dismissed a shareholder suit against Transphorm, Inc.’s Board and KKR, the largest shareholder, for failure to plead demand futility. The plaintiff alleged that the Board...more
In Anderson v. Magellan Health, Inc., the Delaware Court of Chancery raised the standard for awarding mootness fees in settled M&A disclosure cases that resulted in supplemental disclosures, holding that fees can be awarded...more
In Gandhi-Kapoor v. Hone Capital, LLC, No. 2022-0881-JTL (Del. Ch. July 19, 2023), the Delaware Court of Chancery held respondents Hone Capital LLC and certain related companies in contempt for failing to either object to or...more
In Holifield v. XRI Investment Holdings LLC, No. 407, 2022 (Del. Sept. 7, 2023), the Delaware Supreme Court affirmed the lower court’s determination that the defendant violated XRI Investment Holdings’ LLC agreement when he...more
Shareholder activism has always been a relevant issue for companies, but in recent years a new variety has emerged and taken hold in the form of ESG shareholder activism. In detail, the approaches and impact of ESG campaigns...more
This quarter we are covering some key court decisions regarding securities and corporate governance issues. The U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed a majority of lower court decisions to require traceability in defining the term...more
In In re Edgio Stockholders Litigation, No. 2022-0624-MTZ (Del. Ch. May 1, 2023) the Delaware Court of Chancery, in denying a motion to dismiss, evaluated a stockholder action to enjoin a transaction in light of one party’s...more
In Slack Technologies, LLC v. Pirani, 598 U.S. __ (2023), the Supreme Court declined to redefine the term “such security” in the Securities Act of 1933 to encompass untraceable, unregistered shares from direct listings. This...more
In Lee v. Fisher, No. 21-15923 (9th Cir. 2023), an en banc panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of a shareholder derivative action against The Gap, Inc. Plaintiff...more
In New Enterprise Associates 14. v. Rich, the court held that a covenant not to sue in a voting agreement executed by sophisticated stockholders was facially enforceable even though it limited claims for breach of fiduciary...more
M&A and shareholder litigation is off to a busy start in 2023, with Delaware courts issuing several interesting opinions. The Delaware Supreme Court reversed a Delaware Court of Chancery decision, finding that the “maximum...more
The Delaware Court of Chancery, in Teamsters Local 677 Health Services & Insurance Plan v. Martell, C.A. No. 2021-1075-NAC (Del. Ch. January 31, 2023), granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss under Corwin. The court found...more
In Boardwalk Pipeline Partners, L.P. v. Bandera Master Fund, LP, 288 A.3d 1083 (Del. 2022), the Delaware Supreme Court reversed a Delaware Court of Chancery decision that had awarded nearly US$690 million to plaintiffs....more
In this past year, we saw an uptick in in-person court proceedings as the effects of the pandemic subsided, a decrease in pandemic-related litigation, and a return to many of the core issues facing Delaware companies...more
4/25/2023
/ Acquisitions ,
Caremark claim ,
Cybersecurity ,
Delaware General Corporation Law ,
Derivative Suit ,
Freeze-Out Mergers ,
Mergers ,
Popular ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Shareholder Litigation ,
Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs)
Below is our Corporate / M&A decisions update covering decisions in the fourth quarter of 2022. This update is designed to highlight selected important M&A, corporate, and commercial court decisions on a quarterly basis....more
In Re Stream TV Networks, No. 2020-0766-JTL (Oct. 3, 2022), the Delaware Court of Chancery exercised its broad equitable powers to provide a unprecedented remedy. Stream TV Networks (Stream) had transferred its assets to its...more
In Buzzfeed, Inc. v. Hannah Anderson, C.A. No. 2022-0357-MTZ (Del. Ch. Oct. 29, 2022), the Delaware Court of Chancery held that “New Buzzfeed,” the company that emerged following Buzzfeed’s SPAC transaction and subsequent...more
In Ramcell, Inc. v. Alltel Corp., C.A. No. 2019-0601-PAF (Del. Ch. July 1, 2022), the Court of Chancery reviewed a 2019 short-form merger between Alltel Corporation (Alltel) and Jackson Cellular Telephone Co. (Jackson), that...more
In XRI Investment Holdings LLC v. Holifield, C.A. No. 2021-0619-JTL, the Court of Chancery found that defendant Holifield violated a No Transfer Provision in the limited liability company agreement of XRI Investment Holdings...more
The Delaware Court of Chancery, in In re Carvana Co., No. 2020-0415-KSJM (Del. Ch. June 30, 2022), applied the recently adopted Zuckerberg test for demand futility and denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss. The court found...more
In City of Detroit Police & Fire Ret. Sys. on Behalf of NiSource, Inc. v. Hamrock, No. CV 2021-0370-KSJM, the Delaware Court of Chancery granted a motion to dismiss duty of oversight claims against an energy company’s...more
In Manti Holdings, LLC v. Carlyle Group Inc., C.A. No. 2020-0657-SG (Del. Ch. June 3, 2022), the Delaware Court of Chancery held that minority investor claims could proceed against a private equity firm, Carlyle, and related...more
In Cellular Telephone Partnership Litigation, C.A. No. 6885-CVL, the Chancery Court held that AT&T breached its duty of loyalty to its minority partners when it enacted a Freeze-Out transaction that dissolved a cellular...more