Chancery Awards Advancement to Member Under Operating Agreement Provision

Delaware corporate law allows for a corporation to agree in its organizational documents or contracts to advance legal fees and expenses in defense of actions, arising from a person’s service to the company. To encourage quality leadership of companies, the policy under Delaware law is to broadly construe indemnity and advancement provisions in favor of permitting advancement. In its recent decision in Freeman Family v. Park Avenue Landing, C.A. No. 2018-0683-TMR (Del. Ch. April 30, 2019), the Delaware Court of Chancery determined whether a member of a limited liability company was entitled to advancement under the indemnity and advancement provisions of its operating agreement. The operating agreement imposed a duty on the plaintiff to use its best efforts in its capacity as member to either exchange certain real property or have it developed. In the underlying New Jersey suit, for which advancement was sought, the defendant company challenged the plaintiff member’s call rights based on the member’s alleged failure to use its best efforts concerning the property under the operating agreement. More ›

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Chancery Adopts Narrow Interpretation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

AlixPartners LLP v. Benichou, C.A. No. 2018-0600-KSJM (Del. Ch. May 10, 2019).

The federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”) carries both civil and criminal penalties for unauthorized access to protected computers.  The Court of Chancery recently decided an issue of first impression in Delaware regarding the CFAA’s scope in connection with a suit by AlixPartners against a former partner for allegedly misusing the company’s confidential information and trade secrets. 

Plaintiffs were two entities making up AlixPartners, a global restructuring firm, and the defendant was managing partner of the Paris office before joining a competitor.  Defendant allegedly downloaded confidential client information onto his personal data device, both before and after his discharge, and later provided it to his new employer.  Litigation ensued and the defendant sought dismissal of the plaintiffs’ claim under the CFAA.  Dismissal of that claim turned on whether the defendant was potentially liable under the CFAA for: (i) misusing information obtained from a computer he was authorized to access (the “Broad Approach”); or (ii) unauthorized access to the plaintiffs’ computers (the “Narrow Approach”). More ›

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Chancery Awards Advancement to LLC Member Applying Corporate Law Precedent

Freeman Family LLC v. Park Avenue Landing LLC, C.A. No. 2018-0683-TMR (Del. Ch. Apr. 30, 2019).

Delaware law, under 8 Del. C. § 145, allows for a corporation to agree in corporate documents or contracts to advance legal fees and expenses arising out of one’s service to the company.  Aiming to bolster quality leadership, Delaware’s policy is to construe advancement provisions broadly in favor of advancement.  Parties also utilize advancement provisions in the LLC context.  Different from the corporate context, the foundational principle underlying an LLC relationship is the freedom of contract—the idea that parties are free to arrange their dealings as they choose.  Overlaying this important principle is the notion developed under Delaware case law that, while the contract is paramount in the LLC context, structural choices might result in a court importing ideas from an analogous body of law, like corporate law.  This recent Court of Chancery opinion recognizes and illustrates that notion when dealing with claimed advancement rights, explaining “parties are free to contract into corporate case law (or not) when they create LLCs, and courts will respect that choice.”  More ›

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Chancery Imposes Rule 15(aaa)’s Requirement – Amend or Risk Dismissal with Prejudice – on Cases Transferred from the Superior Court

Otto Candies, LLC v. KPMG, LLP, C.A. No. 2018-0435-MTZ (Del. Ch. Apr. 25, 2019)

Rule 15(aaa), a rule unique to the Court of Chancery, requires plaintiffs faced with a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim to either:  (i) amend their complaint; or (ii) stand on their pleading and risk dismissal with prejudice.  In this case, the plaintiffs initially brought suit in the Superior Court of Delaware, which does not have a corollary to Rule 15(aaa).  Before the Superior Court, defendants moved to dismiss the plaintiffs’ complaint on personal and subject matter jurisdictional grounds, as well as for failure to state a claim.  More ›

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Del. Supreme Court Finds Emails May Be Subject to Production in Books-and-Records Actions

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 inspection is sought for a proper purpose—e.g., one reasonably related to the interests of stockholders. Plaintiff stockholders bear the burden of proving that each category of documents sought is essential to accomplish the stockholders’ purpose for the inspection. Section 220 inspections of books and records are not intended to produce a comprehensive set of documents that would likely be produced under discovery rules in a plenary action. Rather, the goal in a 220 action is to provide stockholders with a discrete set of documents sufficient or necessary to accomplish their purpose. More ›

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Delaware Corporate and Commercial Case Law Year in Review - 2018

This top ten list summarizes significant decisions of the Delaware Supreme Court and the Delaware Court of Chancery over the past calendar year 2018. The article was originally published in Transaction Advisors.

The cases selected either meaningfully changed Delaware law or provided clarity or guidance on issues relevant to corporate and commercial litigation in Delaware. 

One: City of North Miami Beach General Employees’ Retirement Plan v. Dr. Pepper Snapple Group Inc., 189 A.3d 188 (Del. Ch. June 1, 2018) (Bouchard, Chancellor)

This decision arose out of a merger involving the Dr. Pepper and Keurig companies. In a reverse triangular merger, a parent company uses a subsidiary to acquire a target, with the target absorbing that subsidiary. That is how Dr. Pepper and Keurig structured their deal. The result was Dr. Pepper stockholders getting cash but retaining their stock, and Keurig’s stockholders getting a controlling interest in Dr. Pepper. Certain Dr. Pepper stockholders sued in the Court of Chancery, asserting that they had appraisal rights to a judicially-determined fair value in connection with the deal under Section 262 of the Delaware General Corporation Law (DGCL), which were being violated. More ›

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Extraordinary Circumstances MAE Allow a Buyer to Break a Bad Deal

The State of Delaware’s policy is to give maximum effect to the principle of freedom of contract. Delaware courts seek to enforce the language in an agreement negotiated by the parties and will not rewrite the agreement after the fact to reallocate risks, especially in an agreement between sophisticated parties that was bargained for at arm’s length. This includes risks allocated through “material adverse effect” (MAE) provisions in a merger or acquisition agreement. The Delaware Court of Chancery’s recent decision in Akorn, Inc. v. Fresenius Kabi AG, No. 2018-0300-JTL, 2018 WL 4719347 (Del. Ch. Oct. 1, 2018) (Laster, V.C.), illustrates how the court applies Delaware’s policy of freedom of contract. While this is the first time that the court has found that an MAE on the seller’s business justified a buyer’s termination of a merger agreement, this decision presented an exceptional set of facts regarding the utter deterioration of Akorn’s business and widespread company regulatory compliance issues affecting its pipeline of new generic drugs. Accordingly, the court’s ruling merely represents the application of a well-known principle to enforce the language of a merger agreement, allocating the risks bargained for by sophisticated parties, to an egregious set of facts. More ›

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Chancery Rejects Merger Price as Indicator of Fair Value in Appraisal Based on Flaws in Sales Process

Appraisal is a limited statutory remedy that provides a Delaware general corporation’s stockholders, who dissent to the sufficiency of the merger price, with the right to have the Delaware Court of Chancery determine the “fair value” of their shares, 8 Del. C. Section 262. In determining fair value, the court must consider all relevant factors. While a single or multiple factors may be considered in the valuation, the court’s determination of the relevant factors must be grounded in the evidentiary record and “accepted financial principles.”  More ›

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Self-Dealing Conduct Supporting Fiduciary-Duty Claims Was Covered by Contractual Duties Imposed in the LLC Agreement

The Delaware Limited Liability Company Act’s policy is to give the maximum effect to the principle of freedom of contract in LLC operating agreements. The act permits parties to eliminate common-law fiduciary duties, and replace them with contractual duties that are often more limited in scope than default common-law fiduciary duties. While parties may not eliminate the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing in an operating agreement, the implied covenant only operates to imply terms essential to fill gaps necessary to meet the reasonable expectations of the parties as reflected in the express terms of the operating agreement. More ›

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Guidance Provided to Evaluate the Implied Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing

The Delaware Limited Liability Company Act’s policy is to give the maximum effect to the principle of freedom of contract in LLC operating agreements. While the act permits parties to eliminate fiduciary duties that members or managers would otherwise owe to one another, an operating agreement may not eliminate the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing that inheres in every LLC operating agreement under Delaware law. The implied covenant operates to imply terms to address developments or contractual gaps that neither party anticipated in the operating agreement, but which are necessary to fill gaps essential to meeting the reasonable expectations of the parties as reflected in the express terms of the operating agreement. More ›

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Delaware Corporate and Commercial Case Law Year In Review – 2017

Morris James attorneys Lewis Lazarus, Albert Manwaring and Albert Carroll authored an article published in Transaction Advisors titled Delaware Corporate and Commercial Case Law Year in Review – 2017. The article summarizes ten significant decisions of the Delaware Supreme Court and the Delaware Court of Chancery over the past year, including matters such as appraisal rights, duties in the master limited partnership context, director compensation awards, and preclusion in shareholder derivative litigation.  Continue reading for the full article. More ›

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Petition Denied to Remove Wilmington Trust as the Trustee of du Pont Family Trusts

Wilmington Trust serves as the sole trustee for certain du Pont Family Trusts established in the 1940s and 1950s. For many years, Wilmington Trust was closely associated with the du Pont family, and was managed in part by family members. Following the near collapse of its business in the 2008 financial crisis, Wilmington Trust was acquired by M&T Bank. Today, Wilmington Trust is a wholly-owned subsidiary of M&T Bank, and no member of the du Pont family serves on Wilmington Trust’s board. In 2013, at the prompting of the current trusts’ beneficiary, Douglas du Pont, Wilmington Trust agreed to modify the trusts to authorize Mr. du Pont to serve as the “Investment Direction Advisor” for the trusts’ assets, which limited Wilmington Trust to a principally ministerial role in the trusts’ on-going administration. In October 2016, alleged tensions between Mr. du Pont and Wilmington Trust led Mr. du Pont to petition the Court of Chancery to seek to remove Wilmington Trust as the trustee altogether, and to appoint a successor trustee. More ›

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Chancery Recommends Rule to Determine Preclusive Effect of Judgments in Prior Derivative Actions

The predominant approach in most jurisdictions to determine whether the dismissal of a derivative action based on the failure to adequately plead demand futility bars re-litigation of this issue in a subsequent derivative action brought by a different stockholder plaintiff is to apply the traditional legal test for issue preclusion. Generally in these jurisdictions, issue preclusion bars re-litigation of demand futility if: the demand-futility issue is the same; the issue is actually litigated and necessary to a final judgment; it involves the same parties in the prior derivative action or in privity with those parties; and there is adequate representation of counsel in the prior derivative action. More ›

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Structural Coercion Negated Cleansing Effect Under 'Corwin'

Under the Delaware Supreme Court's decision in Corwin v. KKR Financial Holdings, 125 A.3d 304 (Del. 2015), business judgment review applies to cleanse a fiduciary challenge to a noncontrol transaction that was approved by an uncoerced, fully-informed, disinterested stockholder vote. Absent a claim of waste, the result of a Corwin-qualifying stockholder vote is dismissal. The Corwin doctrine is premised on the rationale that when a disinterested majority of stockholders approve a transaction, the vote represents their determination that the transaction is in the corporate interest, and Delaware courts will avoid second-guessing the stockholders' decision by applying the deferential business judgment rule. More ›

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Stockholder Vote Enjoined Over Banker's Financial Interest in Merger

Investment bankers play a central role in the exploration, evaluation, selection and implementation of strategic alternatives for Delaware companies. To enable stockholders to carefully assess how much weight to give an investment banker's analysis of a proposed strategic transaction, Delaware law requires full disclosure of a banker's compensation or financial interest, and other potential banker conflicts of interest in connection with the transaction. If the banker's financial interest in the proposed transaction is "material" and "quantifiable," full disclosure of the financial interest to stockholders is required under Delaware law. To obtain meaningful relief for the benefit of stockholders, the Delaware Court of Chancery has indicated its strong preference for plaintiffs to assert claims to correct disclosures to stockholders in advance of the stockholder vote on the proposed transaction. More ›

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