News & Analysis as of

Breach of Duty Merger Agreements

Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer

Delaware Supreme Court reverses acquirer’s aiding and abetting liability, setting high bar, following precedent set by its recent...

On June 17, 2025, the Delaware Supreme Court (Court), sitting en banc, reversed a Court of Chancery ruling that had held a bidder liable for aiding and abetting fiduciary breaches of the target’s management....more

Vinson & Elkins LLP

Delaware Supreme Court Sets High Bar for Counterparty Aiding and Abetting Liability in M&A Deals

Vinson & Elkins LLP on

The Delaware Supreme Court’s June 17, 2025 decision in In re Columbia Pipeline Group Merger Litigation reversed a $199 million damages award against TC Energy for aiding and abetting breaches by fiduciaries of Columbia...more

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

Insights: The Delaware Edition - December 2024

In this issue, we explore ongoing corporate law issues involving controlling stockholders, with significant decisions anticipated from the Delaware Supreme Court in 2025; the rise in litigation over earnout provisions in...more

Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer

Delaware Supreme Court Affirms Breach of Fiduciary Duty Judgment Against CEO but Reverses Bidder’s Aiding and Abetting Liability

In a recent decision by the Delaware Supreme Court sitting en banc in In re Mindbody, Inc., Stockholder Litigation, the court affirmed the Court of Chancery’s determination that Mindbody’s CEO had breached his duties of...more

Morris James LLP

Court of Chancery Dismisses Aiding And Abetting Fraud Claim Against Corporate Officers And Directors On Grounds That A Corporation...

Morris James LLP on

Urvan v. AMMO, Inc., Consol. C.A. No. 2023-0470 PRW (Del. Ch. Feb. 27, 2024, corrected Mar. 14, 2024) - It is an axiom of Delaware law that a corporation acts through its human agents. This principle informs the causes of...more

Jones Day

Court of Chancery Grants Rare Motion to Dismiss Suit Governed by Entire Fairness Standard

Jones Day on

The electric vehicle company Canoo went public in a de-SPAC transaction in December 2020. After its stock price fell, a stockholder in the SPAC who chose not to redeem his stock sued the SPAC board and its controller for...more

Farrell Fritz, P.C.

Court of Appeals Bolsters the Internal Affairs Doctrine, Takes a Stroll Through Scottish Fiduciary Law

Farrell Fritz, P.C. on

It’s not every day that New York’s highest court considers a question impacting the business divorce cases that we typically litigate.  And even when an interesting business divorce issue does make its way up to Albany, it’s...more

Hogan Lovells

In re Mindbody Inc., Stockholder Litigation: Court finds unfair sale process

Hogan Lovells on

In re Mindbody Inc., Stockholder Litigation, C.A. No. 2019-0442-KSJM (Del. Ch. Mar. 15, 2023), the Delaware Court of Chancery held that a CEO breached his fiduciary duties by taking steps the court found tilted a merger sale...more

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP

Delaware Chancery Court Signals Heightened Scrutiny of SPAC Boards and Sponsors

The Delaware Chancery Court has issued a decision with major implications for sponsors and directors of Delaware incorporated special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs).  In re MultiPlan Corp. Stockholders Litigation is a...more

Morris James LLP

Chancery Dismisses Implied Covenant Claim For Former Stockholders’ Alleged Improper Demands That Company Take Actions To Achieve...

Morris James LLP on

Pacira Biosciences, Inc. v. Fortis Advisors LLC, C.A. No. 2020-0694-PAF (Del. Ch. Oct. 25, 2021) - There generally cannot be a claim under the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing for conduct that is addressed...more

Hogan Lovells

Q3 2021 Quarterly Corporate / M&A decisions updates

Hogan Lovells on

Below is our Corporate / M&A decisions update covering decisions in the third quarter of 2021. This update is designed to highlight selected important M&A, corporate, and commercial court decisions on a quarterly basis. The...more

Hogan Lovells

Flannery v. Genomic Health: Mixed consideration deal with 58% stock evades Revlon enhanced scrutiny - Quarterly Corporate / M&A...

Hogan Lovells on

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

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

Presidio Shines Light on Key Delaware Deal Litigation Trends and Topics

In Firefighters’ Pension System of the City of Kansas City, Missouri Trust v. Presidio, Inc., Vice Chancellor Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery dismissed claims against directors of Presidio, Inc. (Presidio) and...more

Spilman Thomas & Battle, PLLC

Structured and Leveraged Buyout May Breach Fiduciary Obligations

Most mergers and acquisitions and bankruptcy practitioners are well aware of the ever-increasing use of leveraged buy-out ("LBO") by publicly traded companies and private equity groups alike in highly structured liquidation...more

Hogan Lovells

Quarterly Corporate / M&A Decisions Update: Q4 2020

Hogan Lovells on

Below is our Quarterly Corporate / M&A Decisions Update for decisions in Q4 2020. This update is designed to highlight selected important M&A, corporate, and commercial court decisions on a quarterly basis. Brief summaries of...more

Troutman Pepper Locke

Fraud on the Board II: Conflicted CEO Tilts Company Sale in PE Firm’s Favor

Troutman Pepper Locke on

In In re Mindbody, Inc. Stockholders Litigation, the Delaware Court of Chancery declined to dismiss breach of fiduciary duty claims against the chief executive officer of MINDBODY, Inc. (the Company) arising out of the...more

Carlton Fields

The Building Blocks of Materiality

Carlton Fields on

Representations and warranties play an important role in M&A agreements by providing valuable disclosures and allocating risks between the parties. Representations regarding the target company’s financial statements are...more

Morris James LLP

Chancery Dismisses Stockholder Claims that a Minority Owner was a Controlling Stockholder or that a Majority of the Board was...

Morris James LLP on

In re: Essendant, Inc. Stockholder Litigation, C.A. No. 2018-0789-JRS (Del. Ch. Dec. 30, 2019). When as here a Delaware corporation’s charter contains an exculpation provision under Section 102(b)(7) of the Delaware...more

Morris James LLP

Chancery Modifies Advancement Award, Finds Amended Claim Challenging Only Post-Separation Conduct No Longer Triggered Advancement...

Morris James LLP on

Carr v. Global Payment Inc., C.A. No. 2018-0565-SG (Del. Ch. Dec. 11, 2019). Under Delaware law, an order requiring a company to advance attorneys’ fees and expenses may be modified if the claims that triggered the...more

Farrell Fritz, P.C.

Advance! Amend! Retreat!

Farrell Fritz, P.C. on

The title of this post describes not an army maneuver, but the outcome of a recent lawsuit in Delaware Chancery Court for advancement of litigation expenses in which...more

Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP

What's New in Corporate Governance and Securities Law - October 18, 2019

Corporate Governance and Securities Law Developments - Directors Can Be Held Liable for Failure to Oversee “Mission Critical” Regulatory Compliance - On October 1, the Delaware Court of Chancery refused to dismiss a...more

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

Inside the Courts – An Update From Skadden Securities Litigators - December 2018

This quarter’s issue includes summaries and associated court opinions of selected cases principally decided between September 2018 and October 2018. ...more

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

Key Developments in Delaware Corporation Law in 2017

Developments in appraisal law, the application of Corwin v. KKR Financial Holdings LLC in post-closing damages actions and the potential expansion of Kahn v. M&F Worldwide Corporation (MFW) — a case examining the standard of...more

A&O Shearman

Delaware Chancery Court Dismisses Post-Closing Fiduciary Duty Claims, Finding The Complaint Failed To Plead Bad Faith

A&O Shearman on

On August 17, 2017, Chancellor Andre G. Bouchard of the Delaware Court of Chancery dismissed a shareholder suit asserting breach of fiduciary duty claims against the directors of MeadWestvaco Corporation (“MW”) in connection...more

A&O Shearman

Delaware Chancery Court Finds No Fiduciary Duty Breach, Notwithstanding Entire Fairness Review, And Determines Appraisal Value To...

A&O Shearman on

On July 21, 2017, Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery (i) entered judgment in favor of defendants Sprint Nextel Corporation (“Sprint”) and Softbank Corp. (“Softbank”) on claims of breaches of...more

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