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Shareholder Litigation Section 220 Request Delaware General Corporation Law

Woodruff Sawyer

The ABCs of Corporate Law: Reforming Section 220 Demands

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For many years, plaintiffs’ lawyers have used Section 220 requests to harass Delaware corporations. Typically, books and records demands are intrusive and annoying—and nothing more. However, in some cases, plaintiffs have...more

Cooley LLP

Delaware Amends Section 220 – Will Scope of ‘Books and Records’ Production Be Limited?

Cooley LLP on

On March 25, 2025, the Delaware Legislature enacted Senate Bill 21, significantly amending the Delaware General Corporation Law. Among its notable changes is an effort to narrow document production under Section 220, which...more

Morris James LLP

Chancery Determines Certain Suits and Investigations Against Amazon Were Insufficient to Meet Credible Basis Standard to Inspect...

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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

Mayer Brown

A Matter Of Propriety: Delaware Courts Reject Books-and-Records Demand Driven by Ulterior Motive

Mayer Brown on

Section 220 demands are a commonly used tool for stockholders to gain access to a company’s books and records. Although this provision of the Delaware General Corporation Law vests stockholders with a right of access thereto,...more

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

Insights: The Delaware Edition - December 2023

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

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

Books and Records Demands 2023 Recap: Courts Continue To Develop the Law Regarding the Scope of Inspection

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

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

Developments and Trends in Delaware Law: A Review of 2022 and What To Expect in 2023

On January 24, 2023, Skadden presented the fourth and final part of our 15th Annual Securities Litigation and Regulatory Enforcement Update series, “Developments and Trends in Delaware Law: A Review of 2022 and What to Expect...more

Morris James LLP

Chancery Rules That Delisted and Long-Dark Corporation Failed To Show Harm Warranting a Confidentiality Order for Basic Financial...

Morris James LLP on

Rivest v. Hauppauge Digital, Inc., C.A. No. 2019-0848-PWG (Del. Ch. Sept. 1, 2022) - Plaintiff stockholder sought to inspect the books and records of a defendant company, requesting a narrow universe of annual and...more

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

Gad-Zoox: Stockholders Obtain Books and Records Through Statutory Appraisal Proceeding, and Other Section 220 Developments

As discussed in prior issues, Delaware courts have recently refined and limited defenses to Section 220 books and records actions. No longer does a stockholder need to specify the ends to which it might use the books and...more

Hogan Lovells

Q3 2021 Quarterly Corporate / M&A decisions updates

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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

Quarterly Corporate / M&A Decisions Update: Q4 2020

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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

Proskauer - Minding Your Business

Bearing the Books and Records Burden: Delaware Supreme Court Affirms Section 220 Order in AmerisourceBergen

This past year, Proskauer’s private fund litigation blog highlighted a Delaware Chancery case adopting an expansive view in favor of parties seeking information from companies under Section 220 of the Delaware General...more

Snell & Wilmer

How Much Information Must a Shareholder Provide to a Corporation to Inspect Books and Records Under Section 220?

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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

Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP

Delaware Court of Chancery Applies the Internal Affairs Doctrine to Deny Stockholder Inspection Rights Under a Foreign State’s Law

In Juul Labs, Inc. v. Grove, 2020 Del. Ch. LEXIS 264 (Del. Ch. Aug. 13, 2020) (Laster, V.C.), the Delaware Court of Chancery held that the “internal affairs doctrine” bars a stockholder of a Delaware corporation headquartered...more

Troutman Pepper Locke

Delaware Court of Chancery Tells California To Get Off Its Lawn

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In a recent decision, the Delaware Court of Chancery ruled that disputes regarding the internal affairs of a Delaware corporation, including stockholder inspection rights, are to be governed exclusively by Delaware law, even...more

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

Q&A: Directors’ Delaware Law Questions During the Pandemic

Skadden partner Edward Micheletti, who heads the litigation practice of the firm’s Wilmington office, answers common Delaware law questions facing boards of directors during the COVID-19 crisis....more

Proskauer - Minding Your Business

Delaware Chancery Holds Early Committee Appointment Necessary to Cleanse Conflict from Corporate Transactions

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

Proskauer - The Capital Commitment

Vice Chancellor Veers Away from Delaware Section 220 Precedent

Last year, we highlighted the risks of filing a Section 220 books and records request post-litigation, citing a case where the Delaware Chancery Court found that such use was an improper attempt to “sue first, ask questions...more

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP

Implications for Section 220 ‘Books and Records’ Demands Following High River Limited Partnership

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

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP

Delaware Court of Chancery Finds No Showing of Actionable Claim Required to Inspect Books and Records

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

McDermott Will & Schulte

Court of Chancery Expands Stockholder Right to Corporate Books and Records

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

Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer

Delaware Chancery Court Holds That Stockholders Had a “Proper Purpose” to Seek Board Materials From Opioid Distributor, and Orders...

In a 63-page decision issued on Jan. 13, 2020, in Lebanon County Employees’ Retirement Fund v. AmerisourceBergen Corporation, Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery found that stockholders of...more

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

Key Developments in Delaware Corporation Law

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

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP

Recent Trends in Books and Records Litigation

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

A&O Shearman

M&A Watch: Seeking Your True Purpose? Delaware Offers Guidance on Section 220 Requests

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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

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