Litigation developments: fundamental shareholder rights.
For decades, Delaware has been widely regarded as the leading forum for incorporation in the United States. More than half of all publicly traded U.S. companies, including more than two-thirds of the Fortune 500, have made...more
Wong Leung Revocable Tr. v. Amazon.com Inc., C.A. No. 2023-1251-BWD (Del. Ch. May 1, 2024) - In order to inspect books and records under Section 220 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, a stockholder-plaintiff must...more
In this issue, we discuss recent Delaware court developments regarding officer liability, who can recover “lost-premium” damages, and trends in books and records actions, among other topics....more
As discussed in prior articles, stockholder plaintiffs have increasingly sought to obtain companies’ books and records under 8 Del. C. § 220 (Section 220) and the Delaware Limited Liability Company Act’s analogous provision,...more
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
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
This top ten list summarizes significant decisions of the Delaware Supreme Court and the Delaware Court of Chancery over the past calendar year. Our criteria for selection are that the decision either meaningfully changed...more
The Supreme Court of Delaware recently affirmed a decision by the Court of Chancery that ordered a corporation to produce certain books and records to a shareholder, and which granted leave to the shareholder to take a...more
In Salladay v. Lev, the Delaware Chancery Court elaborated on how early a corporate board must take protective measures to shield a conflicted transaction from entire fairness review. Salladay involved a motion to dismiss a...more
In High River Ltd. P’ship v. Occidental Petroleum Corp., No. CV 2019-0403-JRS, 2019 WL 6040285 (Del. Ch. Nov. 14, 2019), the Court of Chancery of the state of Delaware recently refused to hold that Section 220 books and...more
In Lebanon County Employees’ Retirement Fund, et al. v. AmerisourceBergen Corporation, the Delaware Court of Chancery ordered the inspection of the books and records of AmerisourceBergen Corporation, one of the leading opioid...more
In a recent post-trial opinion, Vice Chancellor Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery issued an important decision regarding stockholder books and records demands under Section 220(b) of the Delaware General Corporation...more
Consistent with trends in recent years, in 2019 Delaware corporation law largely was shaped by post-closing suits for money damages against directors who had approved mergers and acquisitions. Two Delaware Supreme Court...more
Recently, the frequency of stockholder demands to inspect corporate books and records pursuant to Section 220 of the Delaware General Corporation Law has increased. In turn, the case law concerning Section 220 demands is...more
Following Corwin v. KKR Financial Holdings and other Delaware cases that have reinforced the standards that stockholder suits must meet to survive dismissal, would-be litigants have increasingly invoked Section 220 of the...more
In Inter-Local Pension Fund GCC/IBT v. Calgon Carbon Corp., C.A. No. 2017-0910-MTZ (Del. Ch. Jan. 25, 2019), the Delaware Court of Chancery enforced an institutional stockholder’s demand for books and records under Title 8,...more
On February 12, 2019, Vice Chancellor Joseph R. Slights III of the Delaware Court of Chancery denied a books and records demand of a mattress company’s (the “Company”) stockholder in connection with the termination of the...more
A recent decision by the Delaware Chancery Court suggests that a litigant might forego the ability to file a books and records request if it waits to do so until after the lawsuit is filed. Last month the Delaware Chancery...more
This top ten list summarizes significant decisions of the Delaware Supreme Court and the Delaware Court of Chancery over the past calendar year 2018. Originally published in Transaction Advisors....more
Section 220 of the Delaware General Corporation Law permits a stockholder to inspect the books and records of a corporation, provided that the demand for inspection meets certain form and manner requirements, and the...more
A director of a Delaware corporation is afforded broad rights under 8 Del. C. § 220(d) to inspect a corporation’s books and records. In the recent decision of Schnatter v. Papa John’s Int’l, Inc., C.A. No. 2018-0542-AGB...more
On January 29, 2019, in a decision authored by Chief Justice Leo E. Strine Jr., the Supreme Court of Delaware unanimously granted a stockholder petitioner’s demand under Delaware General Corporation Law Section 220, 8 Del. C....more
Inter-Local Pension Fund GCC/IBT v. Calgon Carbon Corp., C.A. No. 2017-0910-MTZ (Del. Ch. Jan. 25, 2019). It is sometimes fair to characterize plaintiff-side representative litigation in the corporate context as...more
This quarter's issue includes summaries and associated court opinions of selected cases principally decided between November 2017 and January 2018. The cases address developing trends in appraisal, class certification, core...more
On December 29, 2017, Vice Chancellor Joseph R. Slights III of the Delaware Court of Chancery granted a stockholder’s demand to inspect books and records related to the acquisition of West Corporation (“West”) by Apollo...more