Delaware Business Litigation Report

Court of Chancery Explains Limitations Period

In re Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc. Shareholders Litigation, C.A. No. 1927-CC (October 17, 2007).

In breach of fiduciary duty cases, a frequent question is when to apply the three-year statute of limitations that applies to actions at law. Here, the Court again holds that the statute of limitations begins to run in a breach of fiduciary duty case when the parties enter into their contract and not when the harm resulting from that contract occurs.

Thus, when the complaint alleged that Coca-Cola was abusing its bottling company under the  terms of a 1986 contract, the breach ran from 1986, not from when Coca-Cola took certain actions under that contract in 2004. Time and again, the Court has used this approach to reject late claims or claims asserting a so-called continuing wrong theory where the limitations period never expires.

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