Litigation developments: fundamental shareholder rights.
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On February 23, 2024, Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery invalidated a number of significant provisions in a stockholder agreement between a financial institution (the “Company”) and its...more
In West Palm Beach Firefighters’ Pension Fund v. Moelis & Company, the Delaware Court of Chancery invalidated a set of approval rights contained in a stockholder agreement as facially in conflict with Section 141(a) of the...more
On February 23, 2024, a decision by Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster in the Delaware Chancery Court invalidated parts of a shareholder agreement between Moelis & Company and its Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and founder,...more
On February 23, 2024, Vice Chancellor Travis Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery issued his 131-page decision in West Palm Beach Firefighters’ Pension Fund v. Moelis & Co., No. 2023-0309-JTL. The case involved a...more
On February 23, 2024, Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery issued a decision concluding that some provisions of a stockholder agreement purporting to give a large stockholder various governance...more
Professor Stephen Bainbridge recently commented on a decision by Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster finding that Section 141(a) of the Delaware General Corporation Law trumps most of the provisions of a so-called "new wave"...more
We’ve all read countless headlines and articles about the removal and swift return of Sam Altman as CEO of OpenAI over the past several weeks. Simply put, the nonprofit board voted to remove Altman as a result of a...more
Following a recent Court of Appeal decision, investors, portfolio companies and their advisers should be aware that English courts may, on occasion, adopt seemingly strained interpretations of ambiguous or unclear contract...more
One popular theory of the corporation is that it is a nexus of contracts. As Frank Easterbrook and Daniel Fischel pithily pronounced "Corporations are enduring (relational) contracts." F. Easterbrook and D. Fischel, The...more
UCLA Law Professor Stephen Bainbridge recently answered the question of whether shareholders may remove a corporation's chief executive officer and chairman of the board from a Delaware perspective. Like Delaware, California...more
Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery recently issued a decision addressing whether a covenant not to sue set forth in a stockholders’ agreement is enforceable under Delaware law, with the result...more
Earlier today, Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery issued an important ruling concluding that two companies with multiple classes of common stock were not required, under the Delaware statute,...more
What happened - A recent Delaware chancery court decision has called into question consolidated voting on charter amendments by some companies with multiple classes of common stock. In Garfield v. Boxed, Inc., the court...more
In an important decision addressing an issue of first impression, the Delaware Court of Chancery determined that corporate officers owe a fiduciary duty of oversight under Delaware law. The case, In re McDonald’s Corporation...more
During an M&A process, the seller and its stockholders may consider whether it would be beneficial to exercise any drag-along rights under its stockholder agreements or equity plans. Drag-along rights generally allow a subset...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
A common complaint of a minority shareholder is the denial of access to the corporation’s books and records. A shareholder enjoys the right to examine and copy certain records of the corporation in which the shareholder owns...more
David F. Johnson presented his paper “Business Divorce: Minority Shareholder Rights In Texas” to the State Bar of Texas’s Business Disputes Course on September 2-3, 2021. This presentation addressed shareholder oppression...more
Today's blog revisits (and answers) a question that I posed nearly eight years ago in this post. The question was: "Where Exactly Is It Written That Shareholders Aren't Liable For Corporate Debts?"...more
In this podcast episode, New York Hogan Lovells partner Ryan Philp and senior associate Allison Wuertz discuss litigation developments affecting fundamental shareholder rights, including Section 220 books and records demands,...more
The Delaware Court of Chancery, in The Williams Companies Stockholder Litigation, 2021 WL 754593 (Del. Ch. Feb. 26, 2021), struck down a shareholder rights plan (commonly known as a “poison pill”) adopted by The Williams...more
New regulations implementing certain requirements of the Shareholders Rights Directive II in the UK will require certain publicly traded companies to provide shareholders with confirmations regarding their votes cast by poll...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
Delaware law usually protects directors in making good faith business decisions. However, the recent Delaware Court of Chancery AmerisourceBergen decision signals a two-part trend of (i) increased stockholder access to...more
In High River Ltd. P’ship v. Occidental Petroleum Corp., No. CV 2019-0403-JRS, 2019 WL 6040285 (Del. Ch. Nov. 14, 2019), the Court of Chancery of the state of Delaware recently refused to hold that Section 220 books and...more