AGG Talks: Antitrust and White-Collar Crime Roundup - The Mar-a-Lago Trump Indictment
Corruption, Crime, and Compliance - A Deep Dive into KT Corp's SEC Settlement for FCPA Violations
Corruption, Crime & Compliance - Episode 208 - A Deep Dive into the WPP FCPA SEC Settlement
Litigation developments: fundamental shareholder rights.
Episode 119 -- The Ericsson FCPA Settlement
Podcast: Private Fund Regulatory Update – Network and Cloud Storage
Episode 155-Mara Senn on FCPA Investigations and the Decision to Self-Disclose
FCPA Compliance and Ethics Report-Episode 145-SEC Enforcement of the FCPA, Part II
FCPA Compliance and Ethics Report-Episode 142-Reflections on the Goodyear FCPA Enforcement Action
FCPA Compliance and Ethics Report-Episode 119-FCPA Year in Review, Part I
The books and records demand often is the opening act in business divorce litigation. The relatively low burden that an owner must meet in order to obtain access to a company’s books and records, and the availability of an...more
Oklahoma Firefighters Pension & Ret. Sys. v. Amazon.com, Inc., C.A. No. 2021-0484-LLW (Del. Ch. June 1, 2022) - In reviewing the propriety of a stockholder’s Section 220 demand to inspect corporate records, Delaware courts...more
Corporate books and records demands are on the rise. And as the Delaware courts have made it easier for shareholders to demonstrate a proper purpose to seek inspection, corporations increasingly must defend these actions by...more
The pages of this blog are filled with cases pitting a minority owner of a closely-held business—most often a corporation or an LLC—against the majority. Books and records proceedings, derivative actions brought on behalf of...more
The books and records proceeding often is the first time that a dispute between a minority shareholder and the majority enters the courtroom. Suspicious of misconduct or mismanagement, the minority shareholder demands to...more
Inspection rights in a partnership agreement are frequently ignored until a dispute arises. And by that time, a limited partner’s degree of access may make the difference as to whether a lawsuit is ultimately filed. ...more
For the second time in two years, the Connecticut Supreme Court has ventured into uncharted waters of LLC governance under the Revised Uniform LLC Act which, to date, has been adopted by 22 states and awaits legislative...more
Where a corporation’s board of directors decided to take a particular course of action that was unpopular with a shareholder, the board could not invoke the business judgment rule to prevent the shareholder’s statutory right...more
Last week, the Delaware Supreme Court issued an important decision effectively broadening the scope of stockholder pre-litigation inspection rights. ...more
Shareholder rights (at least in Delaware) include the right to inspect the books and records of the company for a “proper purpose”. What is a proper purpose? We’ll be covering a number of cases in the coming months on this...more
On August 13, 2020, the Delaware Court of Chancery held that stockholders’ rights to inspect the books and records of Delaware companies are exclusively governed by the Delaware inspection statute, 8 Del. C. § 220...more
In Juul Labs, Inc. v. Grove, 2020 Del. Ch. LEXIS 264 (Del. Ch. Aug. 13, 2020) (Laster, V.C.), the Delaware Court of Chancery held that the “internal affairs doctrine” bars a stockholder of a Delaware corporation headquartered...more
In a recent decision, the Delaware Court of Chancery ruled that disputes regarding the internal affairs of a Delaware corporation, including stockholder inspection rights, are to be governed exclusively by Delaware law, even...more
Last year, we highlighted the risks of filing a Section 220 books and records request post-litigation, citing a case where the Delaware Chancery Court found that such use was an improper attempt to “sue first, ask questions...more
In Lebanon County Employees’ Retirement Fund, et al. v. AmerisourceBergen Corporation, the Delaware Court of Chancery ordered the inspection of the books and records of AmerisourceBergen Corporation, one of the leading opioid...more
In a 63-page decision issued on Jan. 13, 2020, in Lebanon County Employees’ Retirement Fund v. AmerisourceBergen Corporation, Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery found that stockholders of...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 Court of Chancery’s recent decision in High River Limited Partnership v. Occidental Petroleum, (Del. Ch. Nov. 14, 2019) considers whether a stockholder’s desire to investigate questionable—but not...more
Section 220 of the Delaware General Corporation Law affords stockholders a qualified right to inspect a corporation's books and records. A Section 220 inspection is a powerful stockholder right, and indeed, the Delaware...more
On November 14, 2019, Vice Chancellor Joseph R. Slights III of the Delaware Court of Chancery rejected a demand by stockholders of Occidental Petroleum Corporation under Section 220, 8 Del. C. § 220, for documents and...more
Yesterday's post parsed the definition of "subsidiary" in Corporations Code Section 189. Because a subsidiary must be a corporation as defined in Section 162, a subsidiary cannot be a foreign corporation, as defined in...more
On August 28, 2019, Vice Chancellor Kathaleen S. McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery granted a shareholder’s demand under 8 Del. C. § 220 to inspect the books and records of defendant GGP Inc. for the purpose of...more
On August 7, 2019, in a decision authored by Justice Gary F. Traynor, the Delaware Supreme Court concluded that books and records produced to a stockholder under Section 220 of the Delaware General Corporation Law are not...more
The Delaware Supreme Court yesterday rejected a presumption of confidentiality for documents produced pursuant to books-and-records inspection requests under § 220 of the Delaware General Corporation Law. The decision in...more
The New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed per curiam the Appellate Division’s decision in R.A. Feur v. Merck & Co., Inc. and its strict adherence to the New Jersey corporate statute N.J.S.A. 14A:5-28 governing “books and records”...more