On July 6, 2023, Chancellor Kathaleen St. J. McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery issued a written opinion explaining a prior bench ruling on a mootness fee awarded to plaintiff’s counsel in connection with a putative...more
In a recent decision from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, a federal Judge pushed back against the common but abusive practice of “mootness fee” payoffs in public M&A deals. In the...more
In 2016, the Delaware Court of Chancery famously put the brakes on disclosure only settlements, warning "to the extent that litigants continue to pursue disclosure settlements, they can expect that the Court will be...more
The Delaware Court of Chancery fundamentally altered the M&A litigation landscape when it expressed its skepticism of disclosure-only settlements in the case of In re Trulia, Inc. Stockholder Litigation, 129 A.3d 884 (Del....more
As expected, securities class action filings reached a high-water mark in 2017. In fact, last year’s total of 400-plus filings was the second-highest on record, topped only by 2001, when the number was skewed by more than 300...more
On July 25, 2017, Chancellor Andre G. Bouchard of the Delaware Court of Chancery issued a supplemental opinion, responding to a remand order from the Delaware Supreme Court, in which Chancellor Bouchard recommended that the...more
Rolling into the new year, North Carolina attorneys are on notice that the ability to gain approval of class action settlements and related attorneys’ fees may become more difficult in some cases. In recent years, we have...more
In recent years, lawsuits challenging mergers and acquisitions have become almost ubiquitous. Virtually all of these cases settled for disclosure-only settlements in which the target’s stockholders received no money. Of...more
Disclosure only settlements are in deep trouble in Delaware based on the Court of Chancery's recent decision in In re Trulia Inc. Stockholder Litigation. That decision is said to have sounded a "death knell" in Delaware for...more
As detailed in a prior post (available here), the ruling in In re Trulia, Inc. Stockholders Litigation, 2016 WL 270821 (Del. Ch. Jan. 22, 2016) changed the legal landscape for so-called disclosure settlements. Among other...more
On January 22, 2016, Delaware Chancellor Andre C. Bouchard rejected a proposed “disclosure-only” settlement in In re Trulia Stockholder Litigation. The decision confirms the Chancery Court’s growing skepticism for...more
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
The Delaware Court of Chancery dealt another blow to disclosure-only settlements of merger litigation and refused to approve a proposed class-action settlement arising from Zillow, Inc.'s acquisition of Trulia, Inc. ...more