In Jacobs v. Akademos, the Delaware Chancery Court ruled that a cash-out merger that provided common shareholders in a privately held corporation, Akademos, Inc., with no value was nonetheless entirely fair. This decision...more
Below is our Corporate / M&A decisions update covering decisions in the third quarter of 2024. Decisions from the Delaware Court of Chancery this quarter included an analysis of the assignment for the benefit of creditors...more
In Seavitt v. N-able, 321 A.3d 516 (Del. Ch. 2024), decided prior to the amendment of the Delaware General Corporate law to add Section 122(18), the Delaware Court of Chancery held that the “public nature of a charter” means...more
Below is our Corporate / M&A decisions update covering decisions in the second quarter of 2024. Decisions from the Delaware Court of Chancery this quarter included further development of the jurisprudence around the validity...more
In re Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation Derivative Litigation, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, sitting en banc, overruled its prior decision in Blasband v. Rales that applied an...more
In Wagner v. BRP Group Inc., the Delaware Court of Chancery further developed its jurisprudence regarding the validity of stockholders agreements that vest significant control rights in minority stockholders instead of a...more
In the first quarter of 2024, Delaware courts issued several noteworthy opinions. The Delaware Supreme Court ruled in In re Fox Corporation/Snap Inc. that corporations do not need to seek votes from each stockholder class to...more
In Palkon v. Maffei, the Delaware Court of Chancery permitted stockholders to pursue claims that the board of directors of TripAdvisor breached their fiduciary duties in converting TripAdvisor from a Delaware corporation to a...more
In re Fox Corporation/Snap Inc. Section 242 Litigation, the Delaware Supreme Court ruled that corporations do not need to seek votes from each separate stockholder class to approve charter amendments exculpating corporate...more
2023 was a busy year, with both the Delaware courts and others, including the U.S. Supreme Court, weighing in on shareholder and M&A litigation issues. The Delaware Court of Chancery issued several notable decisions on issues...more
This quarter, Delaware courts issued several notable opinions in unique contexts. For example, in a rare reversal, the Delaware Supreme Court rejected the Court of Chancery’s use of “judicial notice” of another court’s ruling...more
After a de novo review of the record following a Magistrate in Chancery’s final report, Vice Chancellor Fioravanti of the Delaware Court of Chancery declined to accept the Magistrate’s recommendation to deny a...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
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
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 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
This update is designed to highlight selected important M&A, corporate and commercial court decisions on a quarterly basis. The update contains brief summaries of each decision with links to more robust discussions.
...more