• Bricklayers Pension Fund of W. Pennsylvania v. Brinkley

    Publication Date: 2024-07-30
    Practice Area: Corporate Governance
    Industry: Health Care | Investments and Investment Advisory
    Court: Court of Chancery
    Judge: Vice Chancellor Zurn
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Mark Richardson, Labaton Sucharow LLP, Wilmington, DE; Nathaniel L. Orenstein, Steven L. Groopman, Berman Tabacco, Boston, MA for plaintiff.
    for defendant: Raymond J. DiCamillo, Kevin M. Gallagher, Spencer V. Crawford, Richards, Layton & Finger, P.A., Wilmington, DE; Glenn Kurtz, Andrew Hammond, White & Case LLP, New York, NY; Paul J. Lockwood, Lauren N. Rosenello, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, Wilmington, DE for defendants.

    Case Number: 2022-1118-MTZ

    Court dismissed derivative complaint where stockholder failed to show that a majority of the board faced personal liability for willfully ignoring deficiencies in corporate oversight systems or signs the company faced a strong likelihood of corporate trauma.

  • August 23, 2023 | Delaware Business Court Insider

    Court of Chancery Holds 'Corwin' Inapplicable to Claims Governed by 'Unocal' Standard

    In In re Edgio Stockholders Litigation, the Delaware Chancery Court was asked to apply the same cleansing effect to a claim for injunctive relief analyzed under Unocal, but Vice Chancellor Morgan Zurn found that Corwin was inapplicable.

    6 minute read

  • In re: SmileDirectClub, Inc. Derivative Litig.

    Publication Date: 2021-06-16
    Practice Area: Corporate Governance
    Industry: Investments and Investment Advisory
    Court: Court of Chancery
    Judge: Vice Chancellor Zurn
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Blake A. Bennett, Cooch and Taylor, P.A., Wilmington, DE; P. Bradford deLeeuw, deLeeuw Law LLC, Wil-mington, DE; Lee Squitieri, Squitieri & Fearon, LLP, New York, NY; Jeffrey S. Abraham, Michael J. Klein, Abraham, Fruchter & Twersky LLP, New York, NY; Donald J. Enright, Elizabeth K. Tripodi, Jordan Cafritz, Levi & Korsinsky, LLP for plaintiffs.
    for defendant: Edward B. Micheletti, Jenness E. Parker, of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, Wilmington, DE; Scott D. Musoff, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, New York, NY for defendants.

    Case Number: D69435

    The court granted defendants' motion to dismiss this derivative because plaintiffs failed to meet the con-temporaneous ownership requirement, so they lacked standing.

  • July 24, 2020 | Litigation Daily

    Litigators of the Week: This Kirkland Argument Was So Convincing the Court Adopted It As Its Own

    It's a rare thing for the Delaware Court of Chancery to allow buyers to bow out of merger agreements between signing and closing. It's rarer still for the nation's preeminent venue for merger litigation to grant a buyer's motion to dismiss a deal driven lawsuit by adopting the buyer's oral argument presentation as its own opinion.

    1 minute read

  • In re: Appraisal of Panera Bread Co.

    Publication Date: 2020-02-19
    Practice Area: Mergers and Acquisitions
    Industry: Food and Beverage
    Court: Court of Chancery
    Judge: Vice Chancellor Zurn
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Samuel T. Hirzel, II, Elizabeth A. DeFelice and Melissa N. Donimirski, Heyman Ererio Gattuso & Hirzel LLP, Wilmington, DE; Steven M. Hecht, Michael T.G. Long, Jarett N. Sena, Natalie F. Dallavalle, Frank T.M. Catalina, Edoardo Murillo and Jonathan M. Kass, Lowenstein Sandler LLP, New York, NY for peti-tioners.
    for defendant: Paul J. Lockwood, Jennifer C. Voss, Jenness E. Parker, Alyssa S. O’Connell, Kaitlin E. Maloney, Daniel S. Atlas, Bonnie W. David and Andrew D. Kinsey, Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP, Wilming-ton, DE for respondent.

    Case Number: D68882

    In this statutory appraisal action, the court determined that the process by which the company was sold bore multiple indicia of reliability, and the deal price was persuasive evidence of fair value.

  • Saba Capital Master Fund, Ltd. v. BlackRock Credit Allocation Income Trust

    Publication Date: 2019-07-17
    Practice Area: Corporate Governance
    Industry: Investments and Investment Advisory
    Court: Court of Chancery
    Judge: Vice Chancellor Zurn
    Attorneys: For plaintiff: Carmella P. Keener of Rosenthal, Monhait & Goddess, P.A., Wilmington, DE; Carol S. Shahmoon and Gregory E. Keller, Shahmoon Keller PLLC, Great Neck NY for plaintiff.
    for defendant: William M. Lafferty, D. McKinley Measley, Thomas P. Will and Lauren P. Russell, Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell LLP, Wil-mington, DE; Tariq Mundiya, Sameer Advani, Alexander L. Cheney and Brittany M. Wagonheim, Wilkie Farr & Gallagher LLP, New York, NY for BlackRock Credit Allocation Income Trust and BlackRock New York Municipal Bond Trust. Robert S. Saunders, Ronald N. Brown, III and Eben P. Colby, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP, Wilmington, DE and Boston MA for BlackRock Advisors, LLC, Robert Fairbairn and John Perlowski. Gregory P. Williams and Kevin M. Regan, Richards, Layton & Finger, P.A., Wilmington, DE; John S. Kiernan and Jeremy Feigelson, Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, New York, NY for remaining defendants.

    Case Number: D68635

    The court held that companies could not invalidate a shareholder's nominees due to the failure to return an overly broad ques-tionnaire within a short time frame, and the court further required that votes in favor of the shareholder's nominees should be counted at the next annual meetings.