January, 2020
In Defense of Excellence
Jan. 29, 2020—Jasper L. Tran | 73 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 71 | Reviewed: Anthony T. Kronman, THE ASSAULT ON AMERICAN EXCELLENCE, Free Press 2019. Pp. 272. $27.00 Hardcover. “Up until recently, excellence had been an educational ideal. At the founding of the Catholic University of Ireland in 1852, John Henry Newman envisioned a university as a...
Chancery Court Indicates Willingness to Extend M&F to Compensation Award to Controlling Stockholder
Jan. 28, 2020—Robert S. Reder & Alexandra N. Bakalar | 73 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 61 (2020) | PDF Download Link “Delaware courts are tasked with reviewing breach of fiduciary duty claims arising from a variety of commercial transactions. No matter the type of transaction, however, the standard of review applied by the court is all-important...
Privative Copyright
Jan. 21, 2020—Shyamkrishna Balganesh | 73 Vand. L. Rev. 1 (2020) | “Privative” copyright claims are infringement actions brought by authors for the unauthorized public dissemination of works that are private, unpublished, and revelatory of the author’s personal identity. Driven by considerations of authorial autonomy, dignity, and personality rather than monetary value, these claims are almost as...
Popular Constitutional Argument
Jan. 21, 2020—Tom Donnelly | 73 Vand. L. Rev. 73 (2020)| Critics have long attacked popular constitutionalists for offering few clues about how their theory might work in practice—especially inside the courts. These critics are right. Popular constitutionalism—as a matter of both theory and practice—remains a work in progress. In this Article, I take up the challenge...
Misaligned Lawmaking
Jan. 21, 2020—Timothy Meyer | 73 Vand. L. Rev. 151 (2020) | Since 1962, when Congress passed the Trade Expansion Act, every new U.S. trade deal has had the same essential bargain at its core. Congress agrees to give the president the power to lower trade barriers, while at the same time providing adjustment assistance for those...
Golden Parachutes and the Limits of Shareholder Voting
Jan. 21, 2020—Albert H. Choi, Andrew C.W. Lund & Robert Schonlau | 73 Vand. L. Rev. 223 (2020) | With the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010, Congress attempted to constrain change-in-control payments (also known as “golden parachutes”) by giving shareholders the right to approve or disapprove such payments on...
Dissecting Revlon: Severing the Standard of Conduct from the Standard of Review in Post-Closing Litigation
Jan. 21, 2020—Katie Clemmons | 73 Vand. L. Rev. 267 (2020) | In Corwin v. KKR Financial Holdings LLC and its progeny, the Delaware courts made clear that a fully informed, uncoerced vote by disinterested stockholders triggers the waste standard. In Corwin, the Delaware Supreme Court also indicated that Revlon was only meant to provide stockholders with...
Inflated Private Offering: Regulating Corporate Insiders and Market-Moving Disclosures on Social Media
Jan. 21, 2020—Marisa Papenfuss | 73 Vand. L. Rev. 311 (2020) | The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission enacted Regulation Fair Disclosure (“Regulation FD”) to prohibit companies from disclosing material information to select parties but not the public at large. The rapid advancement of technology since Regulation FD’s enactment has dramatically altered the ways companies distribute information...
Chancery Court Finds Notice to Non-Consenting Stockholders Not a Precondition to an Effective Majority Written Consent
Jan. 15, 2020—Robert S. Reder & Jake Haskins | 73 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc. 53 | PDF Download Link “[N]otice issues were addressed by the Delaware Court of Chancery (“Chancery Court”) in Brown v. Kellar, C.A. No. 2018-0687-MTZ, 2018 WL 6721263 (Del. Ch. Dec. 21, 2018). First, Vice Chancellor Morgan T. Zurn considered whether “prompt notice”...
Chancery Court Rejects Target Company Claim That Termination Fee Was Jilted Merger Partner’s Exclusive Remedy
Jan. 15, 2020—Robert S. Reder & Alexandra Sasha Gombar | 73 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 45 | PDF Download Link “Recently, in Genuine Parts Co. v. Essendant Inc., C.A. No. 2018-0730-JRS, 2019 WL 4257160 (Del. Ch. Sept. 9, 2019) (“Genuine Parts”), the Chancery Court had another opportunity to analyze standard public merger agreement provisions. Vice Chancellor...
Chancery Court Refuses Pleading Stage Dismissal Under Corwin When Stockholders Not Fully Informed of Long-Overdue Financial Restatement
Jan. 15, 2020—Robert S. Reder & Amanda M. Mitchell | 73 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 35 | PDF Download Link “The factual bases underlying Vice Chancellor Slights’s refusal to entertain a Corwin defense at the pleading stage in Tangoe—delayed Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) filings and inadequate financial statement disclosures to stockholders—are similar to the factual...
Chancery Court Refuses to Dismiss Action to Enforce Post-Merger Covenant Due to Ambiguities in Merger Agreement
Jan. 15, 2020—Robert S. Reder & Faisal Q. Haider | 73 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 27 | PDF Download Link “Notwithstanding the disavowal of covenant survival and third-party beneficiary rights, there are circumstances in which publicly traded targets bargain for post-merger covenants in public merger agreements. For instance, where a significant amount of acquiring company stock...
Chancery Court Declines to Apply Corwin at Pleading Stage to “Cleanse” Breach of Fiduciary Duty Claim Due to Material Non-Disclosures
Jan. 15, 2020—Robert S. Reder & Robert W. Dillard | 73 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 17 | PDF Download Link “In late 2018, the Delaware Court of Chancery (the “Chancery Court”) once again denied pleading-stage application of Corwin when faced with well-pled allegations a stockholder vote was not fully informed. In In re Xura, Inc. Stockholder...
Chancery Court Finds Merger Agreement Preserved Sellers’ Privilege Over Pre-Merger Attorney-Client Communications
Jan. 15, 2020—Robert S. Reder & Jake Haskins | 73 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 11 | PDF Download Link “Parties to a merger naturally retain individual legal counsel throughout the process. By operation of the merger statute, when the transaction closes all assets of each constituent corporation to the merger become assets of the surviving corporation....
Delaware Court Refuses Corwin “Cleanse” Due to Inadequate Disclosures of Conflicts of Interest and Financial Projections
Jan. 15, 2020—Robert S. Reder & Kelsey McKeag | 73 Vand. L. Rev. En Banc 1 | PDF Download Link “In Chester County Employees’ Retirement Fund v. KCG Holdings, Inc., C.A. No 2017-0421-KSJM (Del. Ch. June 21, 2019) (“Chester County”), Vice Chancellor Kathaleen St. J. McCormick refused to grant dismissal of a former stockholder’s challenge of a...