In re Columbia Pipeline Grp. Inc. Merger Litig., Consol. C.A. No. 2018-0484-JTL (Del. Ch. May 15, 2024) - In this post-trial decision, the Court addressed an acquirer’s responsibility for damages suffered by a stockholder...more
In In re Columbia Pipeline Group, Inc. Merger Litigation, C.A. No. 2018-0484-JTL, the Delaware Court of Chancery allocated liability among two sell-side officers and a third-party acquirer under the Delaware Uniform...more
Urvan v. AMMO, Inc., Consol. C.A. No. 2023-0470 PRW (Del. Ch. Feb. 27, 2024, corrected Mar. 14, 2024) - It is an axiom of Delaware law that a corporation acts through its human agents. This principle informs the causes of...more
In a case of first impression, the Court of Chancery held recently that officers, like directors, owe their companies a duty of oversight, although the scope of that will vary with their responsibilities. Two other Chancery...more
In re Mindbody Inc., Stockholder Litigation, C.A. No. 2019-0442-KSJM (Del. Ch. Mar. 15, 2023), the Delaware Court of Chancery held that a CEO breached his fiduciary duties by taking steps the court found tilted a merger sale...more
Delaware Court of Chancery Declines to Dismiss Investment Firm from Stockholder Derivative Suit; Delaware Chancery Court Dismisses Majority of Claims Alleging that California Biotech Firm Profited from Nonpublic Information...more
SCOTUS Vacates Class Certification In Suit Against Goldman Sachs And Clarifies Appropriate Scope Of Price Impact Evidence; Stockholders Strike $110 Million Settlement In Suit Alleging Breaches Of Fiduciary Duties By Former...more
Ninth Circuit Holds Loss Causation May Be Predicated on Information Potentially Available Under Freedom of Information Act; D.C. Circuit Upholds FINRA’s Permanent Ban of Broker Accused of Misconduct After Finding SCOTUS...more
Bass, Berry & Sims attorney Chris Lazarini examined a case in which a group of shareholders alleged the company and two individual defendants breached their fiduciary duties to shareholders, and an investment bank aided and...more
In Klein and Cambridge Therapeutic Technologies, LLC, v. Wasserman et al., C.A. No. 2017-0643-KSJM (May 29, 2019), the Delaware Court of Chancery addressed claims of breach of fiduciary duties, tortious interference, and...more
In Chester County Employees’ Retirement Fund v. KCG Holdings, Inc. et al, C.A. No. 2017-0421-KSJM (Del. Ch. June 21, 2019), the Delaware Court of Chancery denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss claims of breach of fiduciary...more
Over the last few years, significant developments in Delaware law and practice have changed the traditional M&A litigation landscape. These developments resulted in a dramatic reduction in pre-closing applications for...more
On October 16, 2018, Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery issued a post-trial opinion in In re PLX Technology Inc. Stockholder Litigation, a dispute arising from the August 2014 merger between...more
In a 137-page post-trial opinion, Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery ruled that an activist stockholder of PLX Technology (PLX) had acted through a principal who served on the PLX board of...more
Cummings v. Eden, C.A. 13007-VCS (February 20, 2018) - This decision is particularly helpful in clarifying the effect of Section 141 of the DGCL. A transaction that is passed by the vote of even a single disinterested...more
On August 18, 2017, the Delaware Court of Chancery granted defendants’ motion to dismiss a class action brought by former minority stockholders of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc. (“MSLO”) against Martha Stewart and...more
This decision is a primer on most of the major issues in Delaware corporate law. However, what it is most likely to be remembered for is its explanation of the duties that directors have to the enterprise as a whole, even...more
Stockholder claims alleging wrongful dilution are typically considered to be derivative in nature. Several decisions out of Delaware, however, have created exceptions to this general rule allowing stockholders to sue...more
Brief Summary - The plaintiff, a shareholder of limited liability company (LLC), filed an action against a law firm and one of its lawyers, alleging they aided and abetted other shareholders in breaching their fiduciary...more
The Delaware Court of Chancery recently made a series of rulings that underscore the importance of oversight by directors in performing their fiduciary duty of care, particularly as it pertains to financial advisors and their...more
In this unusual factual circumstance, the Court denied a motion to dismiss a claim against an investment banker for aiding and abetting a board’s alleged breach of its duty to act with care. Note that the board itself was...more
Here the banker failed to make a timely disclosure to its client that it had previously pitched the buyer to make a bid for the client. The Court found that in the context of a motion to dismiss the Board may have breached...more