Case Law Developments

Subscribe to Case Law Developments via RSS

Last week, the Delaware Court of Chancery issued its first significant appraisal decision applying the Delaware Supreme Court’s recent Dell[1] and DFC[2] opinions, which we’ve previously discussed here and here.  See Verition Partners Master Fund Ltd. v. Aruba Networks, Inc., C.A. No. 11448-VCL (“Aruba”).  Although Dell and DFC both emphasized that deal price will often be the best evidence of fair value in appraisal actions involving open, competitive, and arm’s-length mergers of publicly traded targets, neither case involved a merger where the transaction resulted in significant synergies,[3] which are excluded statutorily from the determination of fair value.[4]  Picking up where those cases left off, the court in Aruba, despite finding that the deal price was the product of an uncompetitive and flawed process, nonetheless found fair value to be significantly below deal price because the merger resulted in significant synergies.  The court instead found fair value to be equal to the pre-announcement market trading price of the public shares, which was 30% below the deal price.  Subject to any appeal from this decision, Aruba continues, and in the context of strategic mergers expands upon, the trend of substantially reducing appraisal risk for buyers of public companies.
Continue Reading Delaware Court of Chancery Finds Fair Value in Appraisal Case To Be Unaffected Market Price

Cleary Gottlieb’s “2017 Developments in Securities and M&A Litigation” discusses major developments from 2017 and highlights significant decisions and trends ahead.

The trend of increased securities class action filings in federal courts continued from 2016 to 2017. The Supreme Court was particularly active in the securities field, ruling in CalPERS that the Securities Act’s repose…

In recent years, shareholder plaintiffs have brought a series of claims before the Delaware Court of Chancery alleging that directors of Delaware companies have abused their discretion in granting themselves excessive equity compensation for their board service.  These cases raised the threshold question of whether the plaintiffs’ challenges should be reviewed under the “entire fairness” standard, which requires the company to bear the burden of proving that the director awards were fair, or the more deferential “business judgment” standard, which grants considerable discretion to directors’ decisions, often resulting in dismissal of claims that fail to plead particularized facts indicating fiduciary lapses by the directors.
Continue Reading New Year’s Resolutions For Director Compensation From Investors Bancorp

In a recently published decision of November 7, 2017, the German Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof) has added another twist to the much debated acquisition of German Celesio AG by US pharma wholesaler McKesson.  McKesson had launched a takeover offer to the free float of Celesio in late 2013, and had entered into a purchase agreement with its then main shareholder Franz Haniel & Cie. to acquire its shareholding of slightly above 50% alongside the takeover bid.  The transaction attracted the interest of Paul Singer.  Elliott acquired a position of approximately 24% in shares and, in addition, convertible bonds of Celesio, and opposed the initial offer due to an alleged undervaluation.  As a result, the initial offer, which was subject to a minimum acceptance threshold of 75%, failed in early January 2014. The 75% acceptance threshold is key under German law, for a bidder to be in a position to exercise control over a German listed corporation and access the cash flows, prior to having effected a squeeze-out of all remaining minorities.
Continue Reading Treating Shareholders Equally – Another Chapter in the McKesson/Celesio Saga

Last week, the Delaware Supreme Court issued another highly anticipated appraisal decision, Dell, Inc. v. Magnetar Global Event Driven Master Fund Ltd. Dell builds on the Court’s DFC decision earlier this year in which the Court held that the merger price will generally be entitled to significant, if not dispositive, weight in an appraisal…

On September 12, 2017, Governance Watch and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP hosted a panel discussion on “Recent Whistleblower Issues.”  Participants in the panel discussion included Matthew Solomon, a partner at Cleary Gottlieb and former Chief Litigation Counsel at the SEC’s Division of Enforcement; Emily Pasquinelli, Deputy Chief of the SEC’s Office of the Whistleblower; David Huntley, Chief Compliance Officer of AT&T; and Steven Durham, a Partner at Labaton Sucharow LLP who specializes in plaintiffs-side whistleblower representations.  The panelists discussed issues critical to U.S. public companies and foreign private issuers relating to federal whistleblower programs.  Below are the key takeaways from the discussion.
Continue Reading Recent Whistleblower Issues: Key Takeaways from the Conference Board’s Governance Watch Webcast

A recent ruling in the ongoing Lehman Brothers bankruptcy case serves as an important reminder about the risks of deferred compensation.

The ruling, issued by Judge Shelley C. Chapman of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York, involved employee claims for payment of deferred compensation under the Lehman Brothers’ (formerly known…

On August 1, 2017, the Delaware Supreme Court issued its highly anticipated decision in the appraisal appeal, DFC Global Corp. v. Muirfield Value Partners, L.P.  The Chancery Court’s decision below had garnered substantial attention for its determination that DFC Global’s fair value was approximately 7.5% higher than the deal price, even though the court found a robust and conflict-free sale process.  On appeal from that decision, DFC Global argued that the Delaware Supreme Court should adopt a presumption in appraisal actions that the deal price in arm’s length and competitive mergers equals fair value.  The appeal drew dueling amicus briefs from two groups of prominent professors, one in favor of this presumption,[1] and one opposed to it.[2]
Continue Reading Delaware Supreme Court Declines To Establish A Presumption In Favor Of Deal Price In Appraisal Actions—Or Did It?

In a decision issued on Friday that will likely slow the recent spike in appraisal suits, the Delaware Court of Chancery held that the fair value of Clearwire Corp. was $2.13 per share—less than half the merger price of $5 per share.  See ACP Master, Ltd. et al. v. Sprint Corp., et al., C.A. No. 8508-VCL (Del. Ch. July 21, 2017) (“Clearwire”).  The decision by Vice Chancellor Laster also found that Sprint Nextel Corp. (“Sprint”), which owned slightly more than 50% of Clearwire’s voting stock at the time of the merger, did not breach its fiduciary duties in acquiring the Clearwire shares it did not already own because the merger was entirely fair to Clearwire’s minority stockholders.
Continue Reading Chancery Finds Fair Value To Be Less Than Half Merger Price

Investors frequently negotiate for a redemption right to ensure at least some return on preferred stock investments in a “sideways situation”—where the target company is neither a huge success nor an abject failure.  Continuing a consistent theme in recent Delaware jurisprudence, the Delaware Court of Chancery declined to dismiss a complaint alleging directors breached their duty of loyalty in taking steps to satisfy an investor’s redemption request.
Continue Reading Between Contractual and Fiduciary Duties: ODN Holding and the Rights of Preferred Stockholders