Courts disagree over whether provisions in a borrower's organizational documents or loan agreements designed to restrict or prevent the borrower from filing for bankruptcy are enforceable as a matter of federal public policy...more
On February 17, 2025, significant amendments to the General Corporation Law of the State of Delaware (the DGCL) were proposed directly by the Delaware General Assembly via Senate Bill No. 21, signaling important updates for...more
In a recent enforcement action, the SEC concluded that the relationship between James Craigie and an officer of Church & Dwight Co. fatally undermined Craigie’s status as an “independent director” of the company under New...more
“Was the richest person in the world overpaid?” That’s how the Delaware Court of Chancery (the Court) began the 200-page opinion in Tornetta v. Musk to rescind Elon Musk’s entire $55.8 billion 10-year equity compensation...more
Public company directors are under more pressure than ever to oversee enterprise risk, even risk from day-to-day operations, which is normally addressed by management. Egregious failures of upper management to react to red...more
In this paper, Seven Gaping Holes in Our Knowledge of Corporate Governance, from the Rock Center for Corporate Governance at Stanford, the authors observe that it “is extremely difficult to produce high-quality, fundamental...more
The Singapore Exchange Regulation (SGX RegCo) published a public consultation paper proposing to amend the Listing Rules to impose a hard nine-year limit on the tenure of independent directors, removing the current two-tier...more
Are corporate boards awash in faux gatekeepers? This article, Board Gatekeepers, from a law professor at the University of Wisconsin, begins with a catalogue of infamous board failures to act as effective monitors of company...more
On April 28, 2022, Vice Chancellor Slights of the Delaware Chancery Court issued a verdict for the defense in In re Tesla Motors, Inc. Stockholder Litigation, a long-running derivative lawsuit challenging the 2016 acquisition...more
Directors must cope with constantly shifting challenges. To help boards navigate these, Skadden launched The Informed Board, a periodic collection of concise articles that provide broad insights about key issues directors...more
In our November 2, 2021 blog post, we highlighted a number of considerations for the 2022 proxy season. Based on recent developments, the following are some additional items...more
As we head into a new proxy season, this SEC order involving settled charges against Leaf Group Ltd. might be a good case to keep in mind. In this case, the SEC charged that Leaf did not adequately identify and analyze—and...more
Institutional Shareholder Services (“ISS”) published its proxy voting guidelines updates for 2021 (“Policy Updates”) on November 12, 2020. The changes that are likely to be of most interest to companies include new and...more
Board Decision Making in a Down Cycle - The last several months have been unprecedented in terms of how quickly and drastically business environments have changed. With widespread uncertainty and financial distress...more
Proxy advisory firms Institutional Shareholder Services (“ISS”) and Glass, Lewis & Co. (“Glass Lewis”) have issued updated proxy voting guidelines for the upcoming 2020 proxy season. Notable policy updates issued by one or...more
On November 11, 2019, Institutional Shareholder Services, Inc. (“ISS”) published its proxy voting guidelines updates (the “2020 Updates”) for the 2020 proxy season, effective for meetings on or after February 1, 2020. The...more
We have identified only a few possible changes to date for D&O questionnaires for the 2020 proxy season. New rules adopted to implement the FAST Act clarify that registrants may, but are not required to, rely only on...more
Oh, I kid the directors! Who would think of such a thing? Well, the folks in India for one. Bloomberg reports that, after a series of corporate frauds, the Indian government is attempting to raise the country’s corporate...more
DIRECTORS AS VENDORS - A new controversy at a large health system highlights the legal and reputational challenges that can arise when directors sell services to the organizations they serve as fiduciaries. According to...more
Old and In the Way? A recent study by four professors (Ronald W. Masulis, Cong Wang, Fei Xie & Shuran Zhang) finds quite a few faults with older directors...more
On September 27, 2018, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) charged Elon Musk, the Chairman and CEO of Tesla, Inc., a publically-traded California-based technology company that specializes in electric...more
U.S. companies face a dizzying array of challenges, including from disruptive technologies and cybersecurity threats; economic and geopolitical uncertainties; climate change and evolving sustainability metrics; and questions...more
The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) have released CSA Consultation Paper 52-404 – Approach to Director and Audit Committee Member Independence (Consultation Paper) and are inviting comments on the current approach to...more
On November 16, 2016, Skadden hosted a webinar titled “Preparing for the Shareholder Proposal Season.” The panelists were Amy Borrus, deputy director of the Council of Institutional Investors (CII); Skadden M&A and corporate...more
In a recent speech, SEC Chair Mary Jo White discussed the current role of mutual fund directors and what the SEC expects of them going forward. The Role of Independent Directors in Assessing Risk - In remarks at the...more