On August 6, the SEC filed its much-anticipated legal brief in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals supporting its controversial Climate Rules and responding to the arguments laid out in petitioners’ consolidated petitions for...more
8/22/2024
/ Administrative Procedure Act ,
Amicus Briefs ,
Climate Change ,
Corporate Governance ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Environmental Social & Governance (ESG) ,
First Amendment ,
Pending Litigation ,
Publicly-Traded Companies ,
Risk Mitigation ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Statutory Authority
On July 17, 2024, Delaware Gov. John Carney signed into law significant amendments to the Delaware General Corporation Law (DGCL), which will become effective on August 1, 2024. The amendments were articulated in Delaware...more
7/25/2024
/ Amended Legislation ,
Board of Directors ,
Commercial Contracts ,
Contract Terms ,
Corporate Governance ,
Delaware General Corporation Law ,
Effective Date ,
Governor Carney ,
New Legislation ,
Shareholder Activism ,
Shareholder Approval ,
Shareholders ,
Shareholders' Agreements
Background on Moonshot Award Practices -
In the years leading up to the slowdown in the IPO markets in late 2021, it had become increasingly common for high-growth technology companies to grant large equity incentive...more
Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis, the leading proxy voting advisory firms in the United States, have announced updates and clarifications for their voting guidelines for the U.S. market for the 2024...more
1/4/2024
/ Board of Directors ,
Corporate Governance ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Environmental Social & Governance (ESG) ,
Glass Lewis ,
Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) ,
Proxy Advisory Firms ,
Proxy Season ,
Proxy Voting ,
Proxy Voting Guidelines ,
Publicly-Traded Companies ,
Shareholders
California Adopts Bill Regulating Net Zero, Carbon Offset Disclosures -
On October 7, 2023, California adopted new requirements that will impact the voluntary carbon offset market and companies making certain emissions...more
We will be discussing the events that took place in securities litigation, corporate/statutory developments and SEC rulemaking during 2022 and provide insight into anticipated trends and considerations for 2023....more
Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis, the leading proxy advisors in the United States, have announced updates and clarifications for their voting guidelines for the 2023 proxy season. Their voting...more
12/6/2022
/ Board of Directors ,
Climate Change ,
Cybersecurity ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Environmental Social & Governance (ESG) ,
Glass Lewis ,
Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) ,
Overboarding ,
Proxy Advisors ,
Proxy Voting Guidelines ,
Publicly-Traded Companies ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Shareholders ,
Voting Rights
On May 13, 2022, the Superior Court of California in Los Angeles County held that SB 826, the law requiring companies with headquarters in California to have a prescribed number of women on their boards of directors, is...more
On April 1, 2022, the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles granted the plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment in a case challenging the legality of AB 979 under the California Constitution...more
4/5/2022
/ Board of Directors ,
Business Litigation ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Disclosure ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Governor Newsom ,
Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) ,
LGBTQ ,
Motion for Summary Judgment ,
Municipalities ,
Publicly-Traded Companies ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Rulemaking Process ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Shareholders ,
State and Local Government ,
State Constitutions
Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis, the leading proxy advisors in the United States, have announced updates and clarifications for their voting guidelines for the 2022 proxy season. Their voting...more
12/10/2021
/ Board of Directors ,
Corporate Governance ,
Disclosure Requirements ,
Diversity ,
Environmental Social & Governance (ESG) ,
Glass Lewis ,
Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) ,
Proposed Amendments ,
Proxy Advisors ,
Proxy Season ,
Proxy Voting Guidelines ,
Publicly-Traded Companies ,
Regulatory Agenda ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Shareholder Proposals ,
Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs)
On November 17, 2021, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission adopted rules requiring the use of universal proxy cards in contested director elections as discussed in Release No. 34-93596 (the Adopting Release). Universal...more
11/30/2021
/ Board of Directors ,
Contested Elections ,
Controlling Stockholders ,
Corporate Governance ,
Disclosure ,
New Rules ,
Nominee Directors ,
Proxy Season ,
Proxy Voting ,
Proxy Voting Guidelines ,
Publicly-Traded Companies ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Universal Proxy Cards
On September 23, 2021—in United Food and Commercial Workers v. Zuckerberg—the Delaware Supreme Court endorsed a new universal three-part demand futility test. The decision will likely have far-reaching consequences, including...more
9/28/2021
/ Appeals ,
Board of Directors ,
Controlling Stockholders ,
DE Supreme Court ,
Demand Futility ,
Derivative Suit ,
Duty of Care ,
Facebook ,
Mark Zuckerberg ,
Reclassification Rules ,
Securities Litigation ,
Shareholder Litigation
On September 20, 2021, the Delaware Supreme Court took the highly unusual step of overruling its prior decision in Gentile v. Rossette. An oft-criticized precedent from 2006, Gentile created an exception allowing minority...more
9/24/2021
/ Appeals ,
Carve Out Provisions ,
Controlling Stockholders ,
Corporate Counsel ,
DE Supreme Court ,
Derivative Tort Claims ,
Dilution ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Mergers ,
Minority Shareholders ,
Shareholder Litigation
On September 20, 2021, in a 2-1 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that Sections 11 and 12(a)(2) of the Securities Act of 1933 (1933 Act) apply to direct listings of company shares, including...more
9/23/2021
/ Direct Listing ,
Employees ,
En Banc Review ,
Initial Public Offering (IPO) ,
Investors ,
NYSE ,
Publicly-Traded Companies ,
Securities Act of 1933 ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Litigation ,
Securities Traders ,
Stocks ,
Unregistered Securities ,
Venture Capital
John Coates, Acting Director of the Division of Corporation Finance at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), issued a public statement providing insight into the SEC’s views on the application of federal...more
4/12/2021
/ D&O Insurance ,
Due Diligence ,
Financial Adviser ,
Initial Public Offering (IPO) ,
New Guidance ,
Privately Held Corporations ,
PSLRA ,
Safe Harbors ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Exchange Act ,
Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs)
On December 22, 2020, in litigation between WeWork and the Softbank Group, the Delaware Court of Chancery determined that the Softbank Group must hand over several dozen otherwise privileged emails because two SoftBank...more
In a first-of-its-kind ruling in California that came down on September 1, 2020, San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Marie Weiner declined jurisdiction over securities claims against Restoration Robotics by holding that the...more
The Delaware Court of Chancery ruled today that Delaware corporations do not have the power to use charter or bylaw provisions to require that claims under the Securities Act of 1933 (1933 Act) be litigated in federal court....more
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that class action plaintiffs can bring claims under the Securities Act of 1933 in either state or federal court. ...more
4/5/2018
/ Class Action ,
Cyan Inc v Beaver Cty Emps Ret Fund ,
Jurisdiction ,
PSLRA ,
Removal ,
SCOTUS ,
Securities Act of 1933 ,
Securities Litigation ,
Securities Violations ,
SLUSA ,
State Law Claims
A new decision makes clear that parties should no longer expect the Delaware Court of Chancery to approve broad settlements of M&A class actions based on supplemental proxy disclosures. Chancellor Andre Bouchard issued a...more
A recent Delaware Chancery Court decision dismissing derivative fiduciary duty claims has significance for public companies with board members who are associated with venture capital firms. ...more
9/8/2015
/ Cybersecurity ,
Data Protection ,
Data Security ,
DE Supreme Court ,
Derivative Suit ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Financial Adviser ,
Financial Institutions ,
Financial Markets ,
Pensions ,
Popular ,
Publicly-Traded Companies ,
Startups ,
Stocks ,
Venture Capital
In a highly anticipated decision issued June 23, 2014, the Supreme Court in Halliburton Co. v. Erica P. John Fund, Inc., No. 13-317 (June 23, 2014), declined an invitation to overrule the “fraud-on-the-market” presumption — a...more
Over the past several months, plaintiffs' lawyers have stepped up attacks on executive compensation disclosures in proxy statements. Although to date most of these attacks have been unsuccessful, the number of case filings is...more