D&O Insurance Myths (Part 1)
Blogging made him both the Pope and the Tom Hanks of D&O insurance - Legally Contented Podcast
D&O Insurance: Better to Have it And Not Need it Than Need it And Not Have it
ESG is All The Rage, but How Does It Intersect with the D&O and RWI Insurance Markets?
Has the SPAC Bubble Burst? Lessons Learned From the Early Days of SPAC Mania
Smoother Sailing or Choppy Waters: What Lies Ahead for the 2022 D&O Market?
Takeaways From Recent Claims Against Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook – Mitigating the Heightened Risk of Privacy Suits Against Individual Directors and Officers
Wait, are we related? Well, that depends on the facts and circumstances of each Claim
Don’t Step on a Crack in the SPAC/deSPAC Insurance Claim Process
The Intersection of Insurance and Bankruptcy – Part 2
NGE On Demand: Insurance and Indemnity Issues for Family Offices with Angela Elbert
The Brave New Frontier of Securing D&O Insurance for SPACs and deSPACs
NGE On Demand: Insurance Issues in Bankruptcy with Jason Frye
The D&O Renewal Market: Will the Wild Ride of Premium Increases, Stretched Capacity and Restrictive Terms Continue?
On-Demand Webinar | Insurance Issues Faced by Employers in Times of COVID-19
Internal Investigations: The Impact of the Yates Memo, the FCPA Unit Pilot Program and Recent Legal Decisions
The Intersection of Cyber and D&O Coverage
Is Private/Non-Profit D&O Coverage Under Priced?
Halliburton: Good for the Plaintiffs’ Bar?
D&O in Brazil and Latin America
On June 17 and 18, DealFlow Events held its annual SPAC conference, a long-standing gathering of key players in the SPAC ecosystem. I was once again invited to speak at the event, which provided an opportunity to explore...more
The United States District Court for the Southern District of California, applying California law, has held that an exception within an insured vs. insured (I v. I) exclusion of a D&O policy restored coverage for a suit...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, applying Virginia law, has affirmed a district court’s ruling that a “bump-up” provision in a D&O policy applied to bar indemnity coverage for the settlement of...more
The Delaware Superior Court has held that an underlying shareholder lawsuit and prior litigation alleging certain common facts did not arise out of Interrelated Wrongful Acts, and did not trigger either the Prior Notice or...more
On January 3, 2025, Judge Paul R. Wallace of the Superior Court for the State of Delaware granted plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment in a directors and officers (“D&O”) insurance denial case against. Harman Int’l Indus....more
In March last year, New York’s Appellate Division – First Department issued Xerox an important pro-policyholder decision in its D&O insurance recovery action against Travelers, arising from Xerox’s failed 2018 merger with...more
Traditionally, this has been the main type of derivative suit that has resulted in large settlements. Merger and acquisition cases are common here. Examples of these types of suits include Paramount Global (CBS-Viacom merger)...more
In a market known for volatility, public company D&O (directors & officers) insurance has certainly lived up to its reputation in recent years—pricing has been on a roller coaster, fluctuating between skyrocketing increases...more
Public company insurance policyholders beware: In recent years, insurance carriers have increasingly invoked the “bump-up” exclusion, which is a carve out provision typically found in directors and officers (D&O) insurance...more
Today, Lynda A. Bennett and Heather Weaver of Lowenstein’s Insurance Recovery Group sit down with Yelena Dunaevsky, Senior Vice President, Transactional Insurance, at Woodruff Sawyer to talk about the current state of SPAC...more
Long a feature of directors’ and officers’ (D&O) liability insurance policies, the so-called “Bump-Up” Exclusion has gotten significant attention over the last few years. Because of the recent escalation in securities...more
As they go through their initial public offering (IPO) and the subsequent merger & acquisition (M&A) process, special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) face many regulatory, legal, and business hurdles. Obtaining the...more
For some time now, merger-objection and acquisition-objection litigation against buyers of companies have been on the rise. In years past, these cases often settled for not much more than additional-disclosure agreements and...more
While it’s true that the recent SPAC craze has significantly cooled, there are still more than 300 SPACs searching for a deal, according to SPAC Insider. The good news for those still searching for a deal is that there isn’t...more
On January 23, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Komatsu Mining Corp. v. Columbia Casualty Company et al., (applying Wisconsin law), affirmed a district court’s holding that a settlement in...more
Tumultuous, exasperating, difficult, nerve-wracking, and frustrating are all apt descriptions of the 2022 SPAC market. We’ve summarized some of its ups and downs in our year in review blog post from October and have touched...more
In a win for Wiley’s client, a California trial court has determined that a pharmaceutical company’s D&O policies did not cover its settlement of shareholder litigation alleging that the price another company paid to acquire...more
In 2020 and 2021, Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs) were all the rage. A SPAC is a “blank check company,” publicly traded, and organized for the purpose of merging with a private company. It’s a mechanism for a...more
Over the past year, SPACs have been through market shifts, regulatory thrashing, economic issues, novel litigation theories, and SEC enforcement actions. I touched on all of these in my previous post, but for this month’s...more
It’s been a year since we launched the SPAC Notebook, our monthly column and podcast series, which helps our readers negotiate the risks and traps of the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) market. Below, we look at...more
For a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that has not completed a business combination but is approaching its deadline for finding a suitable target, two questions loom large: do we extend or liquidate?...more
Woodruff Sawyer’s 10th annual D&O Looking Ahead Guide is here. In it, you will find expert insights to help guide your 2023 directors and officers (D&O) liability insurance program renewal. Read on for a summary of the...more
Extend or liquidate? Those are the two options for a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) that has not completed a business combination but is approaching its deadline for finding a suitable target. ...more
As someone who seeks to minimize my clients’ risks associated with Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) activity, I often field some of the same questions. One of the most common questions my clients have is, “Why do I need a...more
Everyone knows that employees cannot buy or sell securities while in possession of material nonpublic information. However, when we think about material non-public information, we usually think in terms of information...more