The Delaware Court of Chancery yesterday found an activist investor aided and abetted a target board’s breaches of fiduciary duty, most significantly by concealing from the target board (and from the stockholders who were asked to tender into the transaction) material facts bearing on a potential conflict of interest between the activist investor and the target’s remaining stockholders. See In re PLX Technology Inc. S’holders Litig., C.A. No. 9880-VCL (Del. Ch. Oct. 16, 2018).…

This is the fourth in a series of posts discussing certain issues and lessons for practitioners arising out of the recently settled dispute between CBS and its controlling stockholder.[1]  Relevant background can be found here and additional posts in this series can be found here. In the first week of the CBS-NAI litigation, the Court of Chancery denied CBS’s request for a temporary restraining order (“TRO”), which would have prevented NAI from…

Until Vice Chancellor Laster’s decision last week in Akorn Inc. v. Fresenius KABI AG,[1] no Delaware court had released an acquiror from its obligation to close a transaction as a result of the occurrence of a “Material Adverse Effect.”[2]  The cases previously adjudicated in Delaware all had required the acquiror to close, often despite a significant diminishment in target value and, in some, the court criticized the acquiror for seeking to avoid…

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…

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 action involving the sale of a public company pursuant to an open, competitive, and arm’s-length bidding process, regardless of whether the buyer is…

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…

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”),…