Breach of Fiduciary Duty

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In the wake of the SPAC frenzy, which peaked in 2021, investors have filed a significant number of SPAC-related lawsuits, including not only securities class action lawsuits, but also including Delaware direct action breach of fiduciary duty suits. The Delaware actions have so far in at least some cases proven to be successful. More recently, however, the Delaware courts have projected impatience and even fatigue with these kinds of suits, and in at least one recent case, granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss. However, in a more recent case, the Delaware Chancery Court, although noting that the plaintiff’s allegations are “not strong” and “close to the line between an adequate and an inadequate claim,” denied the defendants’ dismissal motion. There are several interesting features to court’s opinion, as discussed below. The Delaware Chancery Court’s October 18, 2024, opinion can be found here.Continue Reading Del. Court Denies Dismissal Motion in SPAC-Related Action

Long-time readers know that the significant amount of SPAC activity in past years led to a surge in SPAC-related litigation. Some of this litigation has taken the form of traditional securities class action lawsuits. However, among the more noteworthy developments in the rise of SPAC-related litigation has been the emergence of a separate type of suit, the Delaware direct action breach of fiduciary class action lawsuit, sometimes referred to a MultiPlan claim in reference to the first suit of the type to be filed. As detailed below, these kinds of lawsuits have gone through a relatively swift evolution. Many of the these kinds of cases remain pending, have not yet reached the settlement stage. However, the GeneDX lawsuit, which is one of these kinds of cases, recently settled for $21 million, subject to court approval. There are a number of interesting aspects of this settlement, as discussed below. The parties settlement stipulation in the case can be found here.Continue Reading Delaware SPAC-Related Direct Action Breach of Fiduciary Duty Suit Settles for $21 Million

Governance Issues frequently are the heart of corporate and securities lawsuits. For that reason, the testimony in this type of litigation of corporate governance and management practices experts can be indispensable. In the following guest post, Dr. Stephen Grace, President and Founder of H.S. Grace & Company, Inc., Alvin H. Fenichel, CPA, Senior Advisor at H.S. Grace & Company, Inc., and Joseph P. Monteleone, Esq., the Principal in Catamount Services LLC,  take a look at the ways in which the testimony of these experts can be utilized in these kinds of lawsuits, as well as the related question of who is qualified to serve as a governance expert. I would like to thank the authors for allowing me to publish their article as a guest post on this site. I welcome guest post submissions from responsible authors on topics of interest to this site’s readers. Please contact me directly if you would like to submit a guest post. Here is the authors’ article.Continue Reading Guest Post: Is It Ever Too Early To Engage A Corporate Governance Expert?

As I have noted on this site, for the last several years (going back at least to 2021, and arguably even further than that), one of the significant factors contributing to securities class action lawsuit filings has been the number of SPAC-related securities suits. In the latest sign that the trend of SPAC-related securities suit filings is continuing, on August 23, 2023, a plaintiff shareholder filed a securities suit in the Southern District of Florida against medical payments collection firm MSP Recovery and certain of its executives, as well as against the directors and officers of the SPAC into which the company merged in 2022. A copy of the plaintiff’s complaint can be found here. PLEASE ALSO SEE THE UPDATE, below. Continue Reading SPAC-Related Securities Suit Filed Against Medical Payments Recovery Firm

Many management liability exclusions contain contractual liability exclusions to clarify that the policy doesn’t provide coverage for contractual breach claims. However, as I have pointed out in prior posts, insurers, in reliance on the exclusion’s broad wording, often seek to apply these exclusions broadly, to apply to a wide variety of kinds of claims beyond contractual liability disputes. In a recent Fifth Circuit decision, the appellate court rejected an insurer’s attempt to apply a contractual liability exclusion to preclude coverage for an underlying breach of fiduciary duty claim. The reasoning of the Fifth Circuit in rejecting the insurer’s arguments provide policyholders with common sense reasoning on which to rely in seeking to avoid the application of the exclusion to noncontractual claims.Continue Reading Contractual Liability Exclusion Does Not Bar Coverage for Fiduciary Duty Claim

As I have chronicled on this blog (most recently, here), a wave of litigation has followed in the wake of the SPAC boom in late 2020 and early 2021. Since January 1, 2021, over 60 SPAC-related securities class actions have been filed, and there has also been a number of Delaware state court breach of fiduciary duty lawsuits, as well. Although many of these suits have only just been filed and therefore have not yet been subjected to judicial scrutiny, there have been several dismissal motion rulings in a number of these cases. A May 2023 memo from the Jones Day law firm entitled “SPAC Litigation: A Review of Recent Developments” (here) reviews the state of play in the various judicial rulings so far in the SPAC-related cases.  As the memo notes, “many high-profile suits have recently survived motions to dismiss (at least in part), and at least one has been resolved through a significant settlement.”Continue Reading Key SPAC-Related Litigation Developments

Though SPAC-related lawsuits were among the most important factors contributing to securities class action litigation filing volume in 2022, SPAC-related litigation has not yet been as significant of a factor so far in 2023. But while there have been relatively few SPAC related securities suits filed this year, there has been SPAC-related Delaware state court breach of fiduciary duty litigation. In the latest example of this Delaware state court litigation activity, plaintiff shareholders recently filed a Delaware Chancery Court lawsuit against the directors of a SPAC; the post-merger de-SPAC company, as successor in interest in the SPAC; and the SPAC’s sponsor, alleging that the defendants breached their fiduciary duties in connection with the merger. A copy of the plaintiff’s March 31, 2023, complaint can be found here.Continue Reading SPAC Board and Sponsor Hit with Delaware State Court Breach of Fiduciary Duty Direct Action

In an interesting and unusual development, the victims’ trust that was created as part of the Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) bankruptcy has reached an agreement to settle the trust’s assigned claims against PG&E’s directors and officers for $117 million. According to the parties’ settlement agreement, the settlement is to be funded entirely with proceeds from PG&E’s D&O insurance program. As discussed below, there are a number of interesting aspects and implications to this settlement A copy of the Fire Victim’s Trust’s September 29, 2022 press release about the settlement can be found here. A copy of the parties’ settlement agreement can be found here.
Continue Reading Wildfire Victims Reach $117 Million Settlement with PG&E Executives for Assigned Liability Claims

In a series of opinions beginning with the Delaware Supreme Court’s 2019 decision in Marchand v. Barnhill, Delaware courts have sustained a number of so-called “Caremark” claims based on the defendant board members’ breach of their duty of oversight. The courts have denied motions to dismiss in cases where the boards failed to act despite “red flags” alerting them to problems. But what happens if the “red flag” that alerts the board to a problem is a litigation demand letter submitted by a prospective claimant seeking to have the board take up litigation because of problems identified in the letter? In an interesting and troubling May 24, 2022 decision, Vice Chancellor Travis Laster sustained a claim based on these kinds of allegations, accepting what he called a “novel theory” with “admitted trepidation.” Though Laster sought in his opinion to contain some the more “disquieting” implications of this ruling, there is now at least a theoretical basis on which future prospective claimants could argue that a board’s rejection of a litigation demand letter could itself give rise to a separate breach of fiduciary duty claim.
Continue Reading Del. Court Sustains Breach of Fiduciary Duty Claim for Board’s Rejection of Demand Letter

As I have noted before, Elon Musk is a reliable source of interesting blog fodder. His hyperkinetic fracases are so numerous that at times it is easy to lose track of the many controversies in which he is involved. Amidst all of the hoopla about his current bid to acquire Twitter, it was easy to overlook the fact that he remained mired in ongoing litigation relating Tesla’s 2016 acquisition of SolarCity. As the heart of the dispute was the fact that Musk served both as Chairman of SolarCity and as an executive of and as the largest shareholder of Tesla at the time.

The dispute went to a ten-day bench trial in 2021, and on April 27, 2022, Delaware Vice Chancellor Joseph R. Slights III issued a lengthy opinion ruling in Musk’s favor on all issues. A copy of the opinion can be found here. As discussed below, the sprawling, 132-page opinion contains a number of interesting observations and insights and also has important implications.
Continue Reading Elon Musk Prevails in Trial Over Tesla’s Acquisition of SolarCity