Bar Exam Toolbox Podcast Episode 167: Listen and Learn -- Direct and Derivative Actions (Corporations)
Board Diversity Podcast
Securities Litigation and Disclosure Issues
Podcast: CFTC Issues LIBOR Transition Relief for Swaps
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
Traditionally deployed to protect a corporation from its board’s imprudent investment or financial decision-making, in recent years shareholders have taken to bringing derivative actions on a corporation’s behalf for its...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
On December 15, 2022, Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery denied a motion to dismiss claims as untimely in a derivative action brought by stockholders against the officers and directors of...more
Takeaways - Corporations can face a wave of stockholder actions purporting to enforce the corporations’ own legal rights, from books and records requests to derivative suits and litigation demands. In contrast to class...more
In In re The Boeing Company, the Delaware Court of Chancery held that Boeing stockholders that sued the company over losses relating to safety problems with Boeing’s 737 MAX airplane had adequately pleaded that a majority of...more
The Supreme Court of Delaware recently affirmed a decision by the Court of Chancery that ordered a corporation to produce certain books and records to a shareholder, and which granted leave to the shareholder to take a...more
In Salladay v. Lev, the Delaware Chancery Court elaborated on how early a corporate board must take protective measures to shield a conflicted transaction from entire fairness review. Salladay involved a motion to dismiss a...more
In a recent post-trial opinion, Vice Chancellor Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery issued an important decision regarding stockholder books and records demands under Section 220(b) of the Delaware General Corporation...more
In the recent decision of Tiger v. Boast Apparel, Inc., No. 23, 2019 (Del. Aug. 7, 2019), the Delaware Supreme Court held that conditioning the inspection of documents pursuant to a demand under 8 Del. C. § 220 on the...more
This top ten list summarizes significant decisions of the Delaware Supreme Court and the Delaware Court of Chancery over the past calendar year 2018. Originally published in Transaction Advisors....more
This top ten list summarizes significant decisions of the Delaware Supreme Court and the Delaware Court of Chancery over the past calendar year. Our criteria for selection are that the decision either changed the law in a...more
The Delaware Supreme Court recently issued an important corporate law decision addressing issue preclusion in the context of multiple shareholder derivative actions. The court ruled in California State Teachers’ Retirement...more
California State Teachers Retirement System v. Alvarez, No. 295, 2016 (Del. Jan. 25, 2018) - This is an important decision clarifying the rules regarding the preclusive effect a dismissal of a derivative suit may have on a...more
Wilkinson v. A. Schulman, Inc., C.A. No. 2017-0138-VCL (Nov. 13, 2017) - This decision has potential far-reaching consequences for shareholder-plaintiff litigation. As is well known, some entrepreneurial plaintiff-side...more
Books and records actions are heralded as the “tools at hand” for litigators pursuing shareholder claims against a corporation. In fact, the Delaware Court of Chancery has been critical of litigants who failed to take...more
The predominant approach in most jurisdictions to determine whether the dismissal of a derivative action based on the failure to adequately plead demand futility bars re-litigation of this issue in a subsequent derivative...more
The Chancellor of Delaware’s Court of Chancery yesterday urged the Delaware Supreme Court to revise Delaware law on preclusion in shareholder derivative actions. The court’s July 25, 2017 decision in In re Wal-Mart Stores,...more
Morris James attorneys Lewis Lazarus, Albert Manwaring and Albert Carroll authored an article published in Transaction Advisors titled Delaware Corporate and Commercial Case Law Year in Review – 2016. The article summarizes...more
The Delaware Supreme Court requested further consideration of the federal due-process issues that might arise where a court is asked to hold that a shareholder derivative action is precluded because a prior derivative action...more
The concept of demand futility, rooted in the fundamental elements of Delaware corporate law, has been present for decades. The demand futility rules developed, as most doctrines of Delaware corporate law do, through judicial...more
Goodwin Procter’s Business Litigation Reporter provides timely summaries of key cases and other developments within dedicated Business Litigation sessions and related courts throughout the country – courts within which...more
Delaware does hold that the dismissal of a derivative suit in another jurisdiction may preclude the prosecution of a similar derivative suit in Delaware. ...more
First, the discovery cannot be of the very records the plaintiff seeks to obtain, for that will give him the relief he seeks before he proves his case. Second, it is often the case that the records are being sought for use in...more