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Last year, Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster famously held that officers could be subject to liability under the Caremark doctrine. In re McDonald’s Corp., 289 A.3d 343 (Del. Ch. Jan. 26, 2023). The Caremark doctrine...more
In a recent case, Bricklayers Pension Fund of Western Pennsylvania (derivatively on behalf of Centene Corporation) v Brinkley (Centene), Delaware's Court of Chancery dismissed “Caremark duty claims”—named after the 1996 case...more
In In re Match Group, Inc. Derivative Litigation, the Delaware Supreme Court held that the dual procedural protections announced in the seminal case of Kahn v. M & F Worldwide Corp. (MFW) are required in order to shift the...more
In Palkon v. Maffei, 2024 WL 678204 (Del. Ch. Feb. 20, 2024), the plaintiffs sought to enjoin the proposed conversions of TripAdvisor, Inc. and Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings, Inc. into Nevada. As noted in this post, Vice...more
In the United States, corporate directors and, as confirmed by the Delaware Court in McDonald’s Corp. Stockholder Derivative Litigation (McDonald), corporate officers owe, as a subset of their duty of loyalty, a duty to...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
The decision articulates the standard for plaintiffs asserting derivative claims based on an alleged failure of oversight by directors and officers of California companies. Nearly three decades ago in the seminal case In...more
Delaware’s demand futility analysis for derivative claims is designed to prevent stockholders from divesting the board of its control of an asset and enabling stockholders to pursue weak claims. To plead demand futility under...more
This June, the Ninth Circuit sitting en banc reheard argument in Lee v. Fisher — a case in which a three-judge panel of the court affirmed the enforceability of an exclusive forum provision contained in a Delaware...more
Effective August 1, 2022, Section 102(b)(7) of the Delaware General Corporation Law (DGCL) was amended to permit a Delaware corporation to include in its charter a provision eliminating or limiting the personal liability of...more
Examine a major Ninth Circuit decision affirming dismissal of a Section 14(a) derivative action based on a forum-selection clause; Highlight the Third Circuit’s adoption of the Omnicare standard for securities fraud claims;...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
One of the earliest signs that a closely-held business is headed for divorce lies in how its owners treat new opportunities. When the relationship among the owners reaches a certain level of distrust, an owner presented with...more
Tesla Motors Stockholder Litigation arises out of Tesla’s acquisition of SolarCity, a market leader in manufacturing and installing solar energy generation systems. On two occasions in 2015 and 2016, Elon Musk suggested to...more
In Lee v. Fisher, 34 F.4th 777 (9th Cir. 2022), the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a shareholder derivative suit against The Gap Inc. (Gap), alleging violations of Section 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of...more
In 2008, Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery — one of the many intellectual giants and gifted writers who’ve occupied seats on that bench — published an article in the Delaware Journal of...more
The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a shareholder derivative action in light of an exclusive-forum bylaw requiring assertion of derivative claims in the Delaware Court of Chancery, even though...more
As previously discussed in our report, “Developments in Securities Fraud Class Actions Against U.S. Life Sciences Companies,” 210 federal securities class actions were filed in 2021, a 34% drop from the 319 filings in 2020...more
The Seventh Circuit issued a resounding message: Delaware forum selection clauses in corporate bylaws cannot lawfully prevent a plaintiff from bringing claims under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the Exchange Act or the...more
Class Certification - Central District of California Denies Class Certification in Securities Fraud Action Concerning Company’s Purchase of ADRs - Stoyas v. Toshiba Corp., No. 2:15-cv-04194 (C.D. Cal. Jan. 7, 2022) - ...more
Delaware amended its Corporation Law (Section 145(g)) to expressly permit the use of captive insurance to protect directors and officers, including from claims for which indemnification is prohibited, joining many other key...more
A recent Seventh Circuit decision in Seafarers Pension Plan v. Bradway may complicate defendants’ ability to use forum-selection bylaws as a basis for dismissal of derivative suits pleading claims under the Securities...more
On December 15, 2021, Vice Chancellor Lori W. Will of the Delaware Court of Chancery dismissed stockholder derivative claims for breaches of fiduciary duty asserted on behalf The Kraft Heinz Company (the “Company”) against an...more
As discussed in a previous client alert, The Boeing Company (Boeing) has faced shareholder litigation arising from the fatal crashes of two 737 MAX airplanes. In one such derivative suit filed under Section 14(a) of the...more
It is not entirely a surprise to those watching the goings-on in the SPAC market to see the recent wave of litigation against SPACs and SPAC-related deals. After all, the avalanche of SPAC IPOs that kept all financial, legal,...more