News & Analysis as of

Fiduciary Duty Entire Fairness Standard

Hogan Lovells

Delaware Supreme Court applies business judgment rule in litigation claiming speculative benefits to the board

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The Supreme Court of Delaware reversed the Court of Chancery's application of the entire fairness standard to a company's decision to redomesticate. In the proceedings below, the minority shareholders of TripAdvisor, Inc. and...more

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP

Delaware Chancery Court Dismisses Claims Subject to Entire Fairness

On May 9, 2025, in Roofers Local 149 Pension Fund v. Fidelity National Financial, Inc. et al., the Delaware Court of Chancery granted a pre-trial motion to dismiss, even though the claims alleged a conflicted controller...more

Holland & Knight LLP

Delaware Supreme Court: Permissive Business Judgment Rule Applies to Corporate Conversions

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everal 2024 decisions by the Delaware Court of Chancery led some prominent corporate leaders to express frustration over perceived increased liability standards for corporate officers and directors, even publicly advising new...more

Fenwick & West LLP

Delaware Supreme Court Provides Much-Anticipated Clarity on Reincorporations

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This case stems from the proposed reincorporations of Tripadvisor, Inc. and Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings, Inc. from Delaware to Nevada, which were first presented to the corporations’ respective stockholders for approval in...more

Allen Matkins

Delaware Supreme Court Holds That While Timing May Not Be Everything, It Is Really Important When Looking For The Exit

Allen Matkins on

Nearly one year ago, Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster decided to apply Delaware's most onerous standard of review, entire fairness, to the decisions of TripAdvisor, Inc. and Liberty TripAdvisor Holdings, Inc. to reincorporate...more

Morris James LLP

Chancery Grants Motion to Dismiss Breach of Fiduciary Duty Claims Against Officers in Controlling Stockholder Transaction Subject...

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Kormos v. Playtika Hldg. UK II Ltd., C.A. 2023-0396-SG (Del. Ch. May 3, 2024) - In this decision involving breach of fiduciary duty claims against two officers, the Court granted the individual defendants’ motions to...more

Hogan Lovells

Delaware Supreme Court clarifies entire fairness standard for controlling stockholder transactions

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In In re Match Group Deriv. Litig., the Delaware Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part the lower court’s decision on the appropriate standard of review and the application of Kahn v. M & F Worldwide Corp., 88...more

Jones Day

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

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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

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP

Delaware Supreme Court Expands MFW Applicability in Conflicted Controller Transactions

On April 4, 2024, the Delaware Supreme Court issued a much-anticipated decision, In re Match Group Derivative Litigation (“In re Match Group”), extending the MFW doctrine more broadly to all conflicted controller...more

Mayer Brown

In re Match Group, Inc.: Delaware Supreme Court Clarifies Standard of Review for Controlling Stockholder Transactions

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In a recent decision, the Delaware Supreme Court clarified the proper standard to apply to a non-freeze-out merger transaction involving a controlling stockholder. Litigators who practice in the Delaware Court of Chancery are...more

Goodwin

Delaware Supreme Court Holds That Boards Must Satisfy the MFW Framework in Controller Transactions to Obtain Business Judgment...

Goodwin on

In 2014, the Delaware Supreme Court held in Kahn v. M&F Worldwide Corp. (“MFW”) that a court will apply the entire fairness standard of review to freeze-out merger transactions between a controlled corporation and its...more

Nutter McClennen & Fish LLP

M&A in Brief: Q1 2024

In a letter ruling, the Delaware Chancery Court held that where neither the target nor the acquiror was a Delaware entity, the transaction documents between the parties could not confer jurisdiction in the Chancery Court...more

Venable LLP

Fiduciary Liability Limitations Under Nevada Law Trigger Entire Fairness Review of Conversion from Delaware Due to Controlling...

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The Delaware Court of Chancery, in Palkon v. Maffei, et al., C.A. No. 2023-0449-JTL (Del. Ch. Feb. 20, 2024), determined that a reduction in the liability exposure of a fiduciary due to the conversion of a Delaware...more

BCLP

Tesla’s Super-charged Equity Award to Elon Musk Unplugged by Delaware Court Cautionary Tale for Boards and Executives

BCLP on

The Delaware Chancery Court invalidated a substantial equity award to Elon Musk – the largest in history. It applied the entire fairness test instead of the more deferential business judgment rule, finding that Musk...more

Farrell Fritz, P.C.

The First State Defines the Scope of Majority Shareholder Fiduciary Duties

Farrell Fritz, P.C. on

More often than not, the centerpiece of an intra-owner business dispute is a claim that those in control of the business breached their fiduciary duties to the company or the minority owners.  While often easy to assert, the...more

Goodwin

Delaware Court of Chancery Rescinds Elon Musk’s $55.8 Billion Compensation Package in Cautionary Tale About Director Independence...

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On January 30, 2024, the Chancellor of the Delaware Court of Chancery struck down the $55.8 billion compensation plan that Tesla, Inc.’s board of directors had granted to Tesla’s well-known CEO, Elon Musk, finding that the...more

Fishman Haygood LLP

A Brief Look at Direct SPAC Cases

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Special purpose acquisition companies (“SPACs”) have been in the litigation spotlight recently. As SPAC disputes play out in courts nationwide, one especially interesting field of play is in the Delaware Chancery courts where...more

Morris James LLP

Controlling Stockholder Avoids Liability Despite Overreach Into Special Committee Brokered-Settlement

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Triggering Delaware’s entire fairness review in stockholder litigation was once considered outcome determinate, but that view has waned. Numerous decisions have shown that defendants can overcome the unified fair process and...more

Barnea Jaffa Lande & Co.

The Business Judgment Rule – a Director’s Best Friend

In corporate law, it is customary to identify three organs through which a business company operates: the shareholders, the company’s management, and the board of directors. While the duties and rules by which shareholders...more

Morris James LLP

Chancery Finds SPAC’s Sponsor and Board Potentially Violated Fiduciary Duties by Depriving Public Stockholders of the Information...

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Delman v. GigAcquisitions3 LLC, C.A. No. 2021-0679-LWW (Del. Ch. January 4, 2023) - Delaware law establishes that fiduciaries of a corporation cannot be exempted from "their loyalty obligation and the attendant equitable...more

Hogan Lovells

Joseph Lawrence Ligos v. Isramco, Inc.: Court dismisses breach of fiduciary duty claims

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In Joseph Lawrence Ligos v. Isramco, Inc., et al., C.A. No. 2020-0435-SG (Del. Ch. Nov. 30, 2022), the Delaware Court of Chancery granted a motion to dismiss a shareholder class action complaint alleging that the members of...more

Morris James LLP

Chancery Applies Schnell and Blasius Review and Upholds Deadlock-Breaking Stock Issuance

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Diamond Fortress Techs., Inc. v. Everid, Inc., C.A. No. N21C-05-048 PRW CCLD (Del. Super. Ct. Apr. 14, 2022) - Plaintiff Diamond Fortress contracted with the defendant company to provide its software to develop a trading...more

Hogan Lovells

Manti v. Carlyle: Allegations of rushed private equity exit trigger entire fairness sale scrutiny - Corporate / M&A Decisions...

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In Manti Holdings, LLC v. Carlyle Group Inc., C.A. No. 2020-0657-SG (Del. Ch. June 3, 2022), the Delaware Court of Chancery held that minority investor claims could proceed against a private equity firm, Carlyle, and related...more

Hogan Lovells

In re Cellular: AT&T breached duty to minority partners with unfair and self-interested freeze out - Corporate / M&A Decisions...

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In Cellular Telephone Partnership Litigation, C.A. No. 6885-CVL, the Chancery Court held that AT&T breached its duty of loyalty to its minority partners when it enacted a Freeze-Out transaction that dissolved a cellular...more

Gray Reed

Delaware Court Subjects de-SPAC Transaction to Entire Fairness Standard of Review

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In In re MultiPlan Corp. Stockholders Litigation, the Delaware Court of Chancery denied defendants’ motions to dismiss and ruled that the plaintiffs’ may proceed with their claims that a the insiders of a special purpose...more

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