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Kevin LaCroix

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Kevin M. LaCroix is an attorney and Executive Vice President, RT ProExec, a division of RT Specialty. RT ProExec is an insurance intermediary focused exclusively on management liability issues.

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The overall number of Delaware Chancery Court M&A lawsuit settlements increased in 2025, but aggregate, average, and median settlement values decreased during the year, according to a new report from Cornerstone Research. The report, which is entitled “M&A Litigation Settlements in the Delaware Court of Chancery: 2012-2025 Review & Analysis,” attributes the 2025 declines in settlement values to the number of SPAC merger-related lawsuit settlements during the year. Cornerstone Research’s September 23, 2026, press release about the report can be found here. The report itself can be found here.

Continue Reading Del. Chancery Court M&A Lawsuit Settlement Values Decreased in 2025
Singapore

This past week, I was on assignment for The D&O Diary in Singapore, the prosperous and verdant city-state in equatorial Southeast Asia. With its clean and orderly streets and its lush parks, as well as its fabulous food scene, Singapore is one of my favorite places to visit, and this return trip reconfirmed my appreciation for the place.

Continue Reading Singapore

As we have noted on this site in recent years, privacy-related issues have been and remain a significant potential source of D&O risk and liability exposure. In the latest example of the ways that privacy-related concerns can translate into D&O claims, a plaintiff shareholder has filed a shareholder derivative lawsuit against the board and controlling shareholders of company Alphabet alleging that the defendants violated their fiduciary duties by failing to take steps to protect the company from over $4.5 billion in fines, penalties, and settlements arising from alleged privacy violations. A copy of the redacted public version of the September 22, 2026, complaint can be found here.

Continue Reading Alphabet Board Hit with Privacy-Related Follow-On Derivative Lawsuit

My overseas assignment for The D&O Diary continued this week with a stop in the Catalan city of Barcelona, nestled between the mountains and the sea in coastal Spain. I was very happy to be back in Barcelona again, because I know from prior experience that the city’s combination of great weather, splendid setting, excellent food, and architectural richness is pretty hard to beat.

Continue Reading Barcelona

In our recent round-up of the top D&O stories so far this year, one of the top developments in 2026 we noted is the growing amount of AI-related D&O litigation. The AI-related litigation trend has continued to develop, as new AI-related lawsuits continue to be filed. In recent days, plaintiffs’ lawyers have filed two further AI-related securities class action lawsuits, first, against the Chinese Internet company Baidu, and, separately, against the AI-powered Internet advertising firm AppLovin. Both new lawsuits are based on AI-washing type allegations. The new lawsuit against Baidu also reflects the surging levels of securities litigation this year involving Chinese companies, as discussed further below.

Continue Reading AI-Related Securities Suit Filings Continue to Surge
Puerta del Sol, Madrid

This past week I was on assignment for The D&O Diary in Madrid, Spain’s capital and largest city. It was a return trip to the city for me, although I think I appreciated it much more this time. It is without a doubt a great place and a great place to visit.

Continue Reading Madrid

In a recent decision, the 11th Circuit reversed a lower court’s blockbuster ruling holding that the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act violate the U.S. Constitution’s Appointments Clause. The appellate court left other key constitutional questions unanswered and remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings, leaving the door open for further judicial consideration of the constitutionality of the qui tam provisions. The Eleventh Circuit’s September 1, 2026, opinion can be found here.

Continue Reading False Claims Act’s Qui Tam Provisions Survive Constitutional Challenge

Over the last several months, the boards of a number of tech companies have been hit with “follow on” shareholder derivative lawsuits, after the companies were first sued in underlying intellectual property suits. The derivative lawsuits allege that the companies’ boards knowingly allowed their companies to use copyrighted materials to train their AI models, resulting in the underlying IP liability litigation, as well as potential IP-related liability. In the following guest post, Nathaniel French and Mason Dressler take a detailed look at the latest of these lawsuits, filed against Apple’s board. Nate is a partner and Mason is an associate at the Kennedys law firm. Our thanks to Nate and Mason for allowing us to publish their article on this site.

Continue Reading Guest Post: Apple Intelligence: Ongoing Risks Associated with AI Development

On August 21, 2026, when the Tioga-Franklin Saving Bank of Philadelphia was closed by banking regulators, it became the fifth U.S. bank to fail this year. The five failures so far in 2026 comes after only two banks closed in 2024 and in 2025, respectively. News of the most recent closure left me wondering if perhaps there was something to worry about with the recent apparent uptick in bank failures. Turns out, I am not the only one wondering about this. On August 26, 2026, Law.com ran an article considering what might be causing the recent increase in the number of bank failures. While the Law.com article concludes that the banks closed this year mostly failed due to operating problems specific to the failed institutions involved, there is still enough there to take a closer look at what is going on.

Continue Reading Should We Worry About the Uptick in Bank Failures?

Every year after Labor Day, The D&O Diary takes a step back to survey the most important current trends and developments in the world of Directors’ and Officers’ liability and insurance. This year’s review is set out below. As the following discussion shows, this is a particularly interesting time in the world of D&O.

Continue Reading What to Watch in the World of D&O