Derivative Suits
The Role of the Board in Derivative Litigation: Delaware Law and the Current ALI Proposals Compared
Michael P. Dooley and E. Norman Veasey, 44(2): 503–42 (Feb. 1989)
This Article analyzes the derivative suit reforms proposed in Part 7 of the ALI's Corporate Governance Project, including a point-by-point comparison of the proposals with Delaware law. The authors critically examine the theoretical case made in Part 7 to support the proposals and find it unpersuasive. They conclude that the ALI proposals are inferior to existing law, inconsistent with other aspects of the corporate governance scheme, and likely to prove excessively costly if implemented.
The Role of the Business Judgment Rule in Shareholder Litigation at the Turn of the Decade
Dennis J. Block, Stephen A. Radin, and James P. Rosenzweig, 45(2): 469–510 (Feb. 1990)
This Article examines the unprecedented developments in the law surrounding the business judgment rule in shareholder derivative litigation in the 1980s, both in the context of when a prelitigation demand is required and the scope of judicial review of board decisions to refuse a shareholder's demand that litigation be commenced. Particular attention is devoted to the pending proposals to codify the law in these areas in the Model Business Corporation Act and Principles of Corporate Governance: Analysis and Recommendations.
Michigan's Independent Director
Cyril Moscow, Margo Rogers Lesser, and Stephen H. Schulman, 46(1): 57–66 (Nov. 1990)
This Article reviews an innovation in the Michigan Business Corporation Act which allows corporations to designate a director meeting statutory standards of independence and competence as an " independent director." Once designated, an independent director has special powers in such areas as dismissal of derivative suits. The Michigan sponsors hope that this experiment will lead to an improvement in corporate governance and reduce litigation.
Kamen v. Kemper Financial Services, Inc.: The Scope of the Demand Requirement in Shareholder Derivative Actions Under the Investment Company Act of 1940
Christopher M. Hoffmann, 47(3): 1333–54 (May 1992)
In Kamen v. Kemper Financial Services, Inc., 500 U.S. 90 (1991), the Supreme Court held that federal courts must apply state law in deciding whether demand is excusable in a derivative action under the Investment Company Act. This Note examines Kamen's impact on the role of state law in federal remedial schemes, particularly in the corporate context. It also scrutinizes the Court's reasoning and the practical and doctrinal impact of its decision.
An Underview of the Principles of Corporate Governance
Richard B. Smith, 48(4): 1297–1311 (Aug. 1993)
The author recounts some of the process leading to the publication of the ALI's Principles of Corporate Governance and the issues and debates that led to the final language of key provisions, particularly those concerning derivative litigation. The relationship of the Principles to the MBCA and Delaware law is put in context.
New Myths and Old Realities: The American Law Institute Faces the Derivative Action
John C. Coffee, Jr., 48(4): 1407–41 (Aug. 1993)
d>Adopting a business judgment test with respect to most duty-of-care actions but a " reasonableness" test with respect to many duty-of-loyalty claims, the ALI's Principles of Corporate Governance seek to confine and focus the derivative action on enforcement of a limited range of duty-of-loyalty and related claims. The author outlines the trade-offs faced in the Principles and assesses the broader public policy issues underlying shareholder litigation.
Derivative Litigation: Current Law Versus The American Law Institute
Dennis J. Block, Stephen A. Radin, and Michael J. Maimone, 48(4): 1443–83 (Aug. 1993)
This Article examines the standard of judicial review governing determinations by independent directors, where these directors constitute a majority of the board, that derivative litigation against corporate directors and officers should not be pursued because such litigation will, for some bona fide corporate reason, not serve the best interests of the corporation. The current law on the issue is compared with treatment afforded the issue by the ALI in its Principles of Corporate Governance.
The Emerging Judicial Hostility to the Typical Damages Model Employed by Plaintiffs in Securities Class Action Lawsuits
Robert A. Alessi, 56(2): 483 (Feb 2001)
In securities class action lawsuits, it is not uncommon for plaintiffs' counsel to proffer expert testimony in support of their claims that the respective shareholder classes have been damaged in amounts totaling hundreds of millions of dollars. Recently, however, the damages model typically employed by the plaintiffs' bar in securities class actions has been subjected to renewed judicial scrutiny. This Article suggests that several recent court decisions reflect the judiciary's growing intolerance for the untested, speculative nature of the plaintiffs' damages model. In light of this increasing judicial skepticism, defendants may well elect to press their challenges to the model's more sweeping assumptions, suspect methodologies, and dubious conclusions.
Empty Voting and Hidden (Morphable) Ownership: Taxonomy, Implications, and Reforms
Henry T. C. Hu and Bernard Black, 61(3):1011–1070 (May 2006)
Most American publicly held corporations have a one-share, one-vote structure, in which voting power is proportional to economic ownership. This structure gives shareholders economic incentives to exercise their voting power well and helps to legitimate managers' exercise of authority over property the managers do not own. Berle-Means' "separation of ownership and control" suggests that shareholders face large collective action problems in overseeing managers. Even so, mechanisms rooted in the shareholder vote, including proxy fights and takeover bids, constrain managers from straying too far from the goal of shareholder wealth maximization.
In the past few years, the derivatives revolution, hedge fund growth, and other capital market developments have come to threaten this familiar pattern throughout the world. Both outside investors and corporate insiders can now readily decouple economic ownership of shares from voting rights to those shares. This decoupling—which we call "the new vote buying"—is often hidden from public view and is largely untouched by current law and regulation. Hedge funds, sophisticated and largely unfettered by legal rules or conflicts of interest, have been especially aggressive in decoupling. Sometimes they hold more votes than economic ownership, a pattern we call "empty voting." That is, they may have substantial voting power while having limited, zero, or even negative economic ownership. In the extreme situation of negative economic ownership, the empty voter has an incentive to vote in ways that reduce the company's share price. Sometimes hedge funds hold more economic ownership than votes, though often with "morphable" voting rights—the de facto ability to acquire the votes if needed. We call this "hidden (morphable) ownership" because under current disclosure rules, the economic ownership and (de facto) voting ownership are often not disclosed. Corporate insiders, too, can use new vote buying techniques.
This article analyzes the new vote buying and its corporate governance implications. We propose a taxonomy of the new vote buying that unpacks its functional elements. We discuss the implications of decoupling for control contests and other forms of shareholder oversight, and the circumstances in which decoupling could be beneficial or harmful to corporate governance. We also propose a near-term disclosure-based response and sketch longer-term regulatory possibilities. Our disclosure proposal would simplify and partially integrate five existing, inconsistent share-ownership disclosure regimes, and is worth considering independent of its value with respect to decoupling. In the longer term, other responses may be needed; we briefly discuss possible strategies focused on voting rights, voting architecture, and supply and demand forces in the markets on which the new vote buying relies.
Cross–Border Tender Offers and Other Business Combination Transactions and the U.S. Federal Securities Laws: An Overview
Jeffrey W. Rubin, John M. Basnage, and William J. Curtin, III, 61(3):1071—1134 (May 2006)
In structuring cross–border tender offers and other business combination transactions, parties must consider carefully the potential application of U.S. federal securities laws and regulations to their transaction. By understanding the extent to which a proposed transaction will be subject to the provisions of U.S. federal securities laws and regulations, parties may be able to structure their transaction in a manner that avoids the imposition of unanticipated or burdensome disclosure and procedural requirements and also may be able to minimize potential conflicts between U.S. laws and regulations and foreign legal or market requirements. This article provides a broad overview of U.S. federal securities laws and regulations applicable to cross–border tender offers and other business combination transactions, including a detailed discussion of Regulations 14D and 14E under the Securities Exchange Act and the principal accommodations afforded to foreign private issuers thereunder.
Internal Investigations and the Defense of Corporations in the Sarbanes-Oxley Era
Robert S. Bennett, Alan Kriegel, Carl S. Rauh, and Charles F. Walker, 62(1): 55–88 (Nov. 2006)
Internal investigations long have been an integral part of the successful defense of corporations against charges of misconduct, as well as an important board and management tool for assessing questionable practices. With the heightened standards of conduct and increased exposure created by Sarbanes-Oxley, this essential instrument for safeguarding corporate interests has become even more crucial in identifying and managing risk in the enforcement arena. This article examines from a practitioner's standpoint when and how internal investigations should be conducted in order to protect the corporation in criminal, civil and administrative proceedings. Particular attention is paid to the issues created by a concurrent government investigation and in dealing with employees and former employees in the course of an investigation. The article also addresses the role of the Audit Committee under Sarbanes-Oxley, and the important issue of reporting the findings of the investigation to appropriate corporate officials. The subject of self-reporting by the Company to enforcement authorities is considered as well. In this context, the article explores the SEC's position on crediting self-reporting and cooperation as set forth in the Seaboard report; Department of Justice policy as embodied in the Thompson Memorandum; and the impact of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines for Organizations.
Revisiting Consolidated Edison—A Second Look at the Case that Has Many Questioning Traditional Assumptions Regarding the Availability of Shareholder Damages in Public Company Mergers
Ryan D. Thomas and Russell E. Stair, 64(2): 329-358 (February 2009)
In October 2005, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Consolidated Edison, Inc. v. Northeast Utilities ("Con Ed") ruled that electric utility company Northeast Utilities ("NU") and its shareholders were not entitled to recover the $1.2 billion merger premium as damages after NU's suitor, Consolidated Edison, refused to complete an acquisition of NU. This case surprised many M&A practitioners who believed that the shareholder premium (or at least some measure of shareholder damages) would be recoverable in a suit against a buyer that wrongfully terminated or breached a merger agreement. If Con Ed proves to have established a general rule precluding the recovery of shareholder damages for a buyer's breach of a merger agreement, the potential consequences to targets in merger transactions would be substantial—shifting the balance of leverage in any MAC, renegotiation, or settlement discussions decidedly to the buyer and effectively making every deal an "option" deal. This ruling, therefore, has left some target counsel struggling to find a way to ensure that the merger agreement allows for the possibility of shareholder damages while also avoiding the adverse consequences of giving shareholders individual enforcement rights as express third-party beneficiaries of the agreement.
The Con Ed case, however, merits a second look. This Article revisits the Con Ed decision and challenges the conclusion of some observers that the court in Con Ed established a general precedent denying the availability of shareholder damages. This Article also discusses how the holding of Con Ed may very well be confined to the facts and the specific language of the merger agreement at issue in the case. Notwithstanding, the uncertainty surrounding how any particular court may approach the issues raised in Con Ed, this Article proposes model contract language that a target might employ to avoid creating a " Con Ed issue" and to minimize the risk of a result that was not intended by the parties.
Litigating in LLCs
Larry E. Ribstein, 64(3): 739-756 (May 2009)
One of the most important issues involving limited liability companies is the appropriate way to characterize and handle disputes among members. Courts and legislatures borrowed the derivative suit remedy from corporations and limited partnerships and applied it to LLCs without adequately considering whether this application was appropriate. In fact, this remedy is not suited to the typical business associations for which LLC statutes are designed--that is, closely held firms in which members generally participate directly in management. In this setting, the derivative remedy creates costs and complications that are unnecessary because more appropriate remedies are available, including member-authorized suits on behalf of the entity, direct suits by the injured parties, and contractual arbitration. Accordingly, the derivative suit should not be a default remedy for LLCs. More generally, this analysis provides an example of the potential risks of borrowing LLC rules from other types of business associations.
Report of the Task Force of the ABA Section of Business Law Corporate Governance Committee on Delineation of Governance Roles & Responsibilities
Task Force of the ABA Section of Business Law Corporate Governance Committee on Delineation of Governance Roles & Responsibilities, 65(1): 107–152 (November 2009)
Reinterpreting Section 141(e) of Delaware's General Corporation Law: Why Interested Directors Should Be "Fully Protected" in Relying on Expert Advice
Thomas A. Uebler, 65(4): 1023–1054 (August 2010)
Directors of Delaware corporations often rely on lawyers, economists, investment bankers, professors, and many other experts in order to exercise their managerial power consistently with their fiduciary duties. Such reliance is encouraged by section 141(e) of the General Corporation Law of the State of Delaware, which states in part that directors "shall . . . be fully protected" in reasonably relying in good faith on expert advice. Section 141(e) should provide all directors of Delaware corporations a defense to liability if, in their capacity as directors, they reasonably relied in good faith on expert advice but nevertheless produced a transaction that is found to be unfair to the corporation or its stockholders, as long as the unfair aspect of the transaction arose from the expert advice. The Delaware Court of Chancery, however, has limited the full protection of section 141(e) by confining it to disinterested directors in duty of care cases. That limitation, which is not expressed in the statute, unfairly punishes interested directors who act with an honesty of purpose and reasonably rely in good faith on expert advice because it requires them to serve as guarantors of potentially flawed expert advice. This Article concludes that Delaware courts should reconsider the application and effect of section 141(e) and allow directors, regardless of their interest in a challenged transaction, to assert section 141(e) as a defense to liability in duty of care and duty of loyalty cases if they reasonably relied in good faith on expert advice.
Resolving LLC Member Disputes in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and the Other States Which Enacted the Prototype LLC Act
James R. Burkhard, 67(2): 405 - 434 (February 2012)
Ten states have modeled their LLC statute on the Prototype Act, prepared by a committee of the ABA Business Law Section. The Prototype Act includes unique provisions governing how LLC member disputes should be settled B intending to eliminate the need for derivative suits. The article explains the procedures, discusses interpretations of the statutory sections, and pays substantial attention to the problems which have arisen in these states when courts have applied these Prototype provisions. By analyzing the existing Prototype provisions, the article provides guidance to lawyers (and courts) litigating LLC member disputes, and recommends how states can improve their existing statutes by adopting recently proposed amendments to the Prototype Act drafted by a committee of the Business Law Section.
Standing at the Singularity of the Effective Time: Reconfiguring Delaware’s Law of Standing Following Mergers and Acquisitions
S. Michael Sirkin; 69(2): 429-474 (February 2014)
This article examines the doctrine of standing as applied to mergers and acquisitions of Delaware corporations with pending derivative claims. Finding the existing framework of overlapping rules and exceptions both structurally and doctrinally unsound, this article proposes a novel reconfiguration under which Delaware courts would follow three black-letter rules: (1) stockholders of the target should have standing to sue target directors to challenge a merger directly on the basis that the board failed to achieve adequate value for derivative claims; (2) a merger should eliminate target stockholders’ derivative standing; and (3) stockholders xi of the acquiror as of the time a merger is announced should be deemed contemporaneous owners of claims acquired in the merger for purposes of derivative standing. Following these rules would restore order to the Delaware law of standing in the merger context and would advance the important public policies served by stockholder litigation in the Delaware courts.
Securing Our Nation’s Economic Future: A Sensible, Nonpartisan Agenda to Increase Long-Term Investment and Job Creation in the United States
Leo E. Strine, Jr., 71(4): 1081-1112 (Fall 2016)
These days it has become fashionable to talk about whether the incentive system for the governance of American corporations optimally encourages long-term investment, sustainable policies, and therefore creates the most long-term economic and social benefit for American workers and investors. Many have come to the conclusion that the answer to that question is no. As these commentators note, the investment horizon of the ultimate source of most equity capital—human beings who must give their money to institutional investors to save for retirement and college for their kids—is long. That horizon is much more aligned with what it takes to run a real business than that of the direct stockholders, who are money managers and are under strong pressure to deliver immediate returns at all times. Americans want corporations that are focused on sustainable wealth and job creation. But there is too little talk accompanied by a specific policy agenda to address that incentive system.
This Article proposes a genuine, realistic agenda that would better promote a sustainable, long-term commitment to economic growth in the United States. This agenda should not divide Americans along party lines. Indeed, most of the elements have substantial bipartisan support. Nor does this agenda involve freeing corporate managers from accountability to investors for delivering profitable returns. Rather, it makes all those who represent human investors more accountable, but for delivering on what most counts for ordinary investors, which is the creation of durable wealth by socially responsible means.
The fundamental elements of this strategy to promote long-term American competitiveness include: (i) tax policy that discourages counterproductive behavior and encourages investment and work; (ii) investment policies to revitalize our infrastructure, address climate change, create jobs, and close our deficit; (iii) reforming the incentives of and enhancing the fiduciary accountability of institutional investors; (iv) reducing the focus on quarterly earnings estimates and improving the quality of information provided to investors; and (v) an American commitment to an international level playing field to reduce incentives to offshore jobs, erode the social safety net, and pollute the planet.
The Demand Review Committee: How It Works, and How It Could Work Better
Collins J. Seitz, Jr. and S. Michael Sirkin, 73(2): 305-318 (Spring 2018)
Stockholders must ordinarily make a demand on their board of directors before initiating litigation on the corporation’s behalf. But the litigation consequences of a stockholder demand—a binding concession of the board’s ability to impartially consider a demand—are so harsh in the ensuing litigation that stockholders rarely choose that path. The demand requirement is thus falling short of its promise as an internal dispute resolution mechanism. If, as we suggest, stockholders typically avoid making a demand and instead prefer to initiate litigation and raise demand futility arguments, no matter how weak, they deprive independent boards of the opportunity to consider the merits of potential litigation outside the courtroom. We propose a private-ordering solution, in which stockholders and boards can agree, if they choose, to reserve rights on demand futility arguments while a demand review process is undertaken. This would allow boards to engage with stockholders in the review process, and would replace some demand futility litigation with boardroom deliberation, thereby restoring the internal dispute resolution function to the demand requirement.
What Injures a Corporation? Toward Better Understanding Corporate Personality
J.B. Heaton, 73(4) 1031-1050 (Fall 2018)
Understanding what injures a corporation can help us better understand corporate personality. Traditional corporate injury is injury to corporate assets or profits. This makes sense, because without defining impairment to corporate assets and profits as corporate injury, most of what we think of as “essential” about a corporation—locking assets into a protected partition—would be impossible: (1) protecting the going concern value of the corporation; (2) maintaining creditor priority; and (3) contracting through the corporate form. More recent expansions of what constitutes corporate injury, including injuries to a corporation’s right to political speech (Citizens United) and religious freedom (Hobby Lobby), seem at first to fit poorly with existing corporate theory. But corporations can “lock in” and “partition” more than assets; they can partition beliefs and virtues as well. Viewed this way, existing corporate theory (and the idea of corporate injury as harm to whatever is partitioned by the corporate form) may provide more help in understanding corporate constitutional rights than previously recognized.
Loss Causation and the Materialization of Risk Doctrine in Securities Fraud Class Actions
Richard A. Booth; 75(2): 1791-1814 (Spring 2020)
In the context of a claim for securities fraud under SEC Rule 10b-5, most federal circuit courts have ruled or recognized that loss causation can be proven by an event that demonstrates an earlier statement by a defendant company to be false. In other words, corrective disclosure need not take the form of speech. Rather, a statement can be shown to be false by the materialization of a risk that was concealed by the company, and investors can be compensated for any losses they suffer as a result. Although this doctrine is well established, its ultimate effect is to overcompensate investors, thus encouraging excessive securities litigation and chilling voluntary disclosure.
The Paradox of Delaware’s “Tools at Hand” Doctrine: An Empirical Investigation
James D. Cox, Kenneth J. Martin, and Randall S. Thomas 75(3): 2123-2172 (Summer 2020)
Much has been written on the subject of abusive shareholder litigation. The last decade has witnessed at first an increase and then a dramatic spike in such suits, primarily suits filed in connection with mergers and acquisitions. Delaware courts are known for not just their deep experience in corporate lawsuits but as being doctrinal innovators. One such innovation occurred in Rales v. Blasband, 634 A.2d 927 (Del. 1993), establishing the “tools at hand” doctrine, whereby, before considering whether to grant a motion to dismiss, the court admonishes the shareholder to resort to inspection rights accorded by the Delaware General Corporation Law so as to gather facts necessary for the complaint to survive the pretrial motion.