Justia Delaware Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals certified a question of law to the Delaware Supreme Court arising out of an appeal from the federal district court for the Central District of California. The question asked whether in a Delaware limited partnership, does the general partner’s request to the limited partner for a one-time capital contribution constitute a request for limited partner action such that the general partner has a duty of disclosure, and if the general partner fails to disclose material information in connection with the request, could the limited partner prevail on a breach of fiduciary duty claim and recover compensatory damages without proving reliance and causation? The Delaware Court responded in the negative: "[f]undamentally, this is not a duty to disclose case - it is a breach of the duty of loyalty case for failure to tell the truth." Under the stipulated facts of this dispute, the general partner’s request to a limited partner for a one-time capital contribution does not constitute a request for limited partner action such that the general partner has a fiduciary duty of disclosure. Even if the general partner had a fiduciary duty of disclosure, if the general partner failed to disclose material information in connection with the request, the limited partner cannot recover compensatory damages without proving reliance and causation. View "Dohmen v. Goodman" on Justia Law

At issue before the Delaware Supreme Court in these cases was the validity of a provision in several Delaware corporations’ charters requiring actions arising under the federal Securities Act of 1933 (the “Securities Act” or “1933 Act”) to be filed in a federal court. Blue Apron Holdings, Inc., Roku, Inc., and Stitch Fix, Inc. were all Delaware corporations that launched initial public offerings in 2017. Before filing their registration statements with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), each company adopted a federal-forum provision. Appellee Matthew Sciabacucchi bought shares of each company in its initial public offering or a short time later. He then sought a declaratory judgment in the Court of Chancery that the FFPs were invalid under Delaware law. The Court of Chancery held that the FFPs were invalid because the “constitutive documents of a Delaware corporation cannot bind a plaintiff to a particular forum when the claim does not involve rights or relationships that were established by or under Delaware’s corporate law.” Because the Supreme Court determined such a provision could survive a facial challenge under Delaware law, judgment was reversed. View "Salzberg, et al. v. Sciabacucchi" on Justia Law

The Third Circuit Court of Appeals certified a series of questions of law to the Delaware Supreme Court. The Questions arose in connection with the prosecution of a qui tam action under the False Claims Act (“FCA”), In re: Plavix Marketing, Sales Practices and Products Liability Litigation (No. II), brought against Sanofi-Aventis U.S. LLC, Sanofi-Aventis U.S. Services, Inc., Aventis, Inc., Aventis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, and Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals Holding Partnership (together, “Defendants”). The relator bringing the action, on behalf of the United States and several states, is JKJ Partnership 2011 LLP, a Delaware limited liability partnership. The partnership consisted of three individuals who allegedly were each an “original source” of knowledge upon which the allegations against Defendants were based. The Questions arose when one of the partners was replaced by another partner, and an amended complaint was filed shortly thereafter. Upon the filing of the amended complaint, the Defendants moved to dismiss, alleging, in-part, that replacing the partner was impermissible the under the FCA’s “first-to-file” bar. The United States District Court for the District of New Jersey (the “District Court”) granted the motion on that ground. The partnership appealed to the Third Circuit, which, in turn, certified the Questions that related to the “construction or application of” a Delaware statute “which has not been, but needed to be settled by the Delaware Supreme Court. View "United States of America v. Sanofi Aventis U.S. LLC, et al." on Justia Law

In 2016, Uber Technologies, Inc. acquired Ottomotto LLC to gain more traction in the autonomous vehicle space, hiring key employees from Google's autonomous vehicle program. Though steps were taken to ensure the former Google employees did not misuse Google's confidential information, it eventually came to light Google's proprietary information had indeed been misused. Uber settled Google's misappropriation claims by issuing additional Uber stock to Google, valued at $245 million. An Uber stockholder and former Uber employee filed suit in the Delaware Court of Chancery against the directors who approved the Otto acquisition. Plaintiff claimed the directors ignored the alleged theft of Google’s intellectual property and failed to investigate pre-closing diligence that would have revealed problems with the transaction. According to plaintiff, the board should not have relied on the CEO’s representations that the transaction had the necessary protections because he and Uber had a history of misusing the intellectual property of others. Defendants responded by moving to dismiss the complaint under Court of Chancery Rule 23.1. As they asserted, the plaintiff first had to make a demand on the board of directors before pursuing litigation on the corporation’s behalf. The Court of Chancery found that a majority of the Uber board of directors could have fairly considered the demand, and dismissed the complaint. The Delaware Supreme Court found, as did the Court of Chancery, that a majority of the board was disinterested because it had no real threat of personal liability due to Uber’s exculpatory charter provision. And a majority of the board was also independent of the one interested director. Therefore, the Supreme COurt affirmed the Court of Chancery's judgment dismissing the complaint with prejudice. View "McElrath v. Kalanick, et al." on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for the Delaware Supreme Court’s review centered on whether, under their respective bylaws, two closed-end investment funds, BlackRock Credit Allocation Income Trust (“BTZ”) and BlackRock New York Municipal Bond Trust (“BQH”, and with BTZ, the “Trusts”), properly excluded their shareholder, Saba Capital Master Fund, Ltd. (“Saba”), from presenting its slate of dissident trustee nominees for election at the respective annual meetings. The Court of Chancery held that such exclusion was improper, reasoning that the supplemental questionnaires that Saba’s nominees were asked to complete, exceeded the bylaws’ scope and, thus, the Trusts were “not permitted to rely on the five-day deadline for Saba’s compliance with that request.” It also held that laches did not bar Saba’s claims for equitable relief. On appeal, Appellants-Trusts contended the Court of Chancery erred by issuing an injunction requiring the Trusts to count the votes for Saba’s nominees at the respective annual meetings, since they claimed that Saba’s nominees were ineligible for election because of their failure to timely provide supplemental information in accordance with the clear and unambiguous bylaws. Appellants also contended the court erred in holding that Saba’s claims for equitable relief were not barred by laches. On appeal, the parties continued to dispute whether the Questionnaire was the type of “necessary” and “reasonably requested” subsequent information that falls within the meaning of Article I, Section 7(e)(ii) of the Trusts’ bylaws. The Delaware Supreme Court agreed with the Vice Chancellor that Section 7(e)(ii) was clear and unambiguous, but disagreed that Saba should have been excused from complying with the Bylaws’ clear deadline. Further, the Court affirmed the Vice Chancellor’s holding as to laches. View "BlackRock Credit Allocation Income Trust, et al. v. Saba Capital Master Fund, Ltd." on Justia Law

Appellants Jeffrey Sheldon and Andras Konya, M.D., Ph.D., alleged in the Delaware Court of Chancery that several venture capital firms and certain directors of IDEV Technologies, Inc. (“IDEV”) violated their fiduciary duties by diluting the Appellants’ economic and voting interests in IDEV. Appellants argued their dilution claims were both derivative and direct under Gentile v. Rosette, 906 A.2d 91 (Del. 2006) because the venture capital firms constituted a “control group.” The Court of Chancery rejected that argument and held that Appellants’ dilution claims were solely derivative. Because Appellants did not make a demand on the IDEV board or plead demand futility, and because Appellants lost standing to pursue a derivative suit after Abbott Laboratories purchased IDEV and acquired Appellants’ shares, the court dismissed their complaint. On appeal, Appellants raised one issue: that, contrary to the Court of Chancery’s holding, they adequately pleaded that a control group existed, rendering their claims partially “direct” under Gentile. Therefore, according to Appellants, their complaint should not have been dismissed. The Delaware Supreme Court agreed with the Court of Chancery’s determination that Appellants failed to adequately allege that the venture capital firms functioned as a control group. Accordingly, the Supreme Court affirmed dismissal of the complaint with prejudice. View "Sheldon, et al. v. Pinto Technology Ventures, L.P., et al." on Justia Law

Stockholder-plaintiff KT4 Partners LLC appealed the Court of Chancery’s post-trial order granting in part and denying in part KT4’s request to inspect various books and records of appellee Palantir Technologies Inc., a privately held technology company. The Court of Chancery found that KT4 had shown a proper purpose of investigating suspected wrongdoing in three areas: (1) “Palantir’s serial failures to hold annual stockholder meetings”; (2) Palantir’s amendments of its Investors’ Rights Agreement in a way that “eviscerated KT4’s (and other similarly situated stockholders’) contractual information rights after KT4 sought to exercise those rights”; and (3) Palantir’s potential violation of two stockholder agreements by failing to give stockholders notice and the opportunity to exercise their rights of first refusal, co-sale rights, and rights of first offer as to certain stock transactions. The Court ordered Palantir to produce the company’s stock ledger, its list of stockholders, information about the company’s directors and officers, year-end audited financial statements, books and records relating to annual stockholder meetings, books and records relating to any cofounder's sales of Palantir stock. The Court otherwise denied KT4's requests, including a request to inspect emails related to Investors' Rights Agreement amendments. Both sides appealed, but the Delaware Supreme Court was satisfied the Court of Chancery did not abuse its discretion with respect to all but two issues: (1) denying wholesale requests to inspect email relating to the Investors' Rights Agreement; (2) and requests to temper the jurisdictional use restriction imposed by the court. "Given that the court found a credible basis to investigate potential wrongdoing related to the violation of contracts executed in California, governed by California law, and among parties living or based in California, the basis for limiting KT4’s use in litigation of the inspection materials to Delaware and specifically the Court of Chancery was tenuous in the first place, and the court lacked reasonable grounds for denying the limited modifications that KT4 requested." View "KT4 Partners LLC v. Palantir Technologies, Inc." on Justia Law

Two of Oxbow Carbon LLC’s minority Members, Crestview Partners, L.P. and Load Line Capital LLC, attempted to force a sale of Oxbow over the objection of Oxbow’s majority Members, William Koch and his affiliates (the “Koch Parties”). This dispute centered on the proper interpretation of the governing Third Amended and Restated Limited Liability Company Agreement (the “LLC Agreement”). Although the Court of Chancery found that the minority investors affiliated with Koch, Ingraham Investments LLC and Oxbow Carbon Investment Company LLC (collectively, the “Small Holders”), could block the sale unless it met certain payment conditions, the court nonetheless found a contractual gap in the LLC Agreement because the Board did not specify the terms and conditions under which the Small Holders acquired their units. Using the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, the Court of Chancery filled that gap by implying a “Top-Off” option for the Small Holders’ units, effectively stripping them of the right to block the proposed transaction. On appeal, Oxbow claimed that: (1) the trial court improperly applied the implied covenant; (2) there was no contractual gap; (3) Oxbow did not breach the LLC Agreement; and (4) the court’s rulings on remedies were made in error. The Delaware Supreme Court determined the Court of Chancery correctly interpreted the LLC Agreement’s plain language, but erred by finding a contractual gap concerning the admission of the Small Holders. Thus, the Court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded the Court of Chancery’s February 12, 2018, decision, and vacated its August 1, 2018, decision on remedies. View "Oxbow Carbon & Minerals Holdings, Inc., et al. v. Crestview-Oxbow Acquisition, LLC, et al." on Justia Law

The question before the Delaware Supreme Court in this case was whether the Court of Chancery properly applied Kahn v. M&F Worldwide Corp., 88 A.3d 635 (Del. 2014) (“MFW”) by reading it as: (1) allowing for the application of the business judgment rule if the controlling stockholder conditions its bid on both of the key procedural protections at the beginning stages of the process of considering a going private proposal and before any economic negotiations commence; and (2) requiring the Court of Chancery to apply traditional principles of due care and to hold that no litigable question of due care exists if the complaint fails to allege that an independent special committee acted with gross negligence. In the Supreme Court's previous affirmance of the Court of Chancery in Swomley v. Schlecht, 128 A.3d 992 (Del. 2015), the Court held that an interpretation of MFW based on these principles was correct. Accordingly, the Court affirmed. View "Flood v. Synutra International, Inc., et al." on Justia Law

In March 2016, soon after The Fresh Market (the “Company”) announced plans to go private, the Company publicly filed certain required disclosures under the federal securities laws. Given that the transaction involved a tender offer, the required disclosures included a Solicitation/Recommendation Statement on Schedule 14D-9 which articulated the Board’s reasons for recommending that stockholders accept the tender offer from an entity controlled by private equity firm Apollo Global Management LLC (“Apollo”) for $28.5 in cash per share. Apollo publicly filed a Schedule TO, which included its own narrative of the background to the transaction. The 14D-9 incorporated Apollo’s Schedule TO by reference. After reading these disclosures, as the tender offer was still pending, plaintiff-stockholder Elizabeth Morrison suspected the Company’s directors had breached their fiduciary duties in the course of the sale process, and she sought Company books and records pursuant to Section 220 of the Delaware General Corporation Law. The Company denied her request, and the tender offer closed as scheduled on April 21 with 68.2% of outstanding shares validly tendered. This case calls into question the integrity of a stockholder vote purported to qualify for “cleansing” pursuant to Corwin v. KKR Fin. Holdings LLC, 125 A.3d 304 (Del. 2015). In reversing the Court of Chancery's judgment in favor of the Company, the Delaware Supreme Court held "'partial and elliptical disclosures' cannot facilitate the protection of the business judgment rule under the Corwin doctrine." View "Morrison, et al. v. Berry, et al." on Justia Law