In Jacobs v. Akademos, the Delaware Chancery Court ruled that a cash-out merger that provided common shareholders in a privately held corporation, Akademos, Inc., with no value was nonetheless entirely fair. This decision...more
Below is our Corporate / M&A decisions update covering decisions in the third quarter of 2024. Decisions from the Delaware Court of Chancery this quarter included an analysis of the assignment for the benefit of creditors...more
Below is our Corporate / M&A decisions update covering decisions in the second quarter of 2024. Decisions from the Delaware Court of Chancery this quarter included further development of the jurisprudence around the validity...more
In Trifecta Multimedia Holdings v. WCG Clinical Services, the Delaware Court of Chancery analyzed claims related to an M&A transaction involving an earn-out component. Earn-outs are a common feature of M&A transactions and...more
2023 was a busy year, with both the Delaware courts and others, including the U.S. Supreme Court, weighing in on shareholder and M&A litigation issues. The Delaware Court of Chancery issued several notable decisions on issues...more
This quarter, Delaware courts issued several notable opinions in unique contexts. For example, in a rare reversal, the Delaware Supreme Court rejected the Court of Chancery’s use of “judicial notice” of another court’s ruling...more
The Delaware courts issued a range of decisions this quarter, addressing topics from mootness fees to demand futility. Two key opinions addressed compliance with Delaware statute and court orders. In Seidman, the court...more
In Anderson v. Magellan Health, Inc., the Delaware Court of Chancery raised the standard for awarding mootness fees in settled M&A disclosure cases that resulted in supplemental disclosures, holding that fees can be awarded...more
This quarter we are covering some key court decisions regarding securities and corporate governance issues. The U.S. Supreme Court reaffirmed a majority of lower court decisions to require traceability in defining the term...more
The Delaware Court of Chancery, in Teamsters Local 677 Health Services & Insurance Plan v. Martell, C.A. No. 2021-1075-NAC (Del. Ch. January 31, 2023), granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss under Corwin. The court found...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
4/25/2023
/ Acquisitions ,
Caremark claim ,
Cybersecurity ,
Delaware General Corporation Law ,
Derivative Suit ,
Freeze-Out Mergers ,
Mergers ,
Popular ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Shareholder Litigation ,
Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs)
Below is our Corporate / M&A decisions update covering decisions in the fourth quarter of 2022. This update is designed to highlight selected important M&A, corporate, and commercial court decisions on a quarterly basis....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
8/23/2022
/ Acquisitions ,
Board of Directors ,
Business Judgment Rule ,
Corporate Governance ,
Delaware General Corporation Law ,
Derivative Suit ,
Elon Musk ,
Entire Fairness Standard ,
Mergers ,
Popular ,
Shareholder Litigation ,
Tesla
Below is our Corporate / M&A decisions update covering decisions in the first quarter of 2022. This update is designed to highlight selected important M&A, corporate, and commercial court decisions on a quarterly basis....more
In In re MultiPlan Corp. Stockholders Litigation, C.A. No. 2021-0300-LWW, the Delaware Court of Chancery denied motions to dismiss a shareholder complaint filed against a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), its...more
In Brown v. Matterport, Inc., et al., C.A. No. 2021-0595-LWW (Del. Ch. Jan. 10, 2022), the Delaware Court of Chancery held that transfer restrictions restricting trade of stock “outstanding immediately” after a de-SPAC merger...more
In Firemen’s Ret. Sys. of St. Louis v. Sorenson, C.A. No. 2019-0965-LWW (Del. Ch. Oct. 5, 2021), the Delaware Court of Chancery dismissed a derivative lawsuit against Marriott executives and directors for breaches of the duty...more
In Flannery v. Genomic Health, Inc., et al. (C.A. No. 2020-0492-JRS (Del. Ch. Aug. 16, 2021)), the Delaware Chancery Court made three key holdings regarding a merger involving mixed consideration of 58 percent stock and 42...more
In Snow Phipps Group, LLC v. KCAKE Acquisition, Inc. (C.A. No. 2020-0282-KSJM), the Delaware Court of Chancery ordered specific performance of a US$550 million acquisition, rejecting the buyer’s argument that the impact of...more
The court’s decision in In re Appraisal of Regal Entertainment Group (C.A. No. 2018-0266-JTL (Del. Ch. May 13, 2021)) is the most recent in a line of cases confirming that the deal-price-less-synergies valuation method is the...more
This update is designed to highlight selected important M&A, corporate, and commercial court decisions. Below is an update to a decision that we have been following....more