Labor Day has come and gone. The kids are back in school. The air is cooler and the nights are longer. There’s a definite autumnal feel in the air. It is time to get back to work. Fortunately, The D&O Diary kept its eye on things over the summer. So if you are feeling the need
D&O Insurance: What Happens When the Former CEO Sues the Company?
When an ex- Chairman, CEO and Director sues his former company, are the company’s defense expenses covered under its D&O insurance policy? According to the June 24, 2011 report and recommendation of Middle District of Tennessee Magistrate Judge John S. Bryant, applying Tennessee law, they are not. A copy of Magistrate Bryant’s report and recommendation
FDIC Files Suit Against Former Haven Trust Directors and Officers
On July 14, 2011, the FDIC filed a lawsuit in the Northern District of Georgia against 15 former directors and officers of Haven Trust Bank of Duluth, Georgia. This suit is the ninth the FDIC has filed as part of the current bank failure wave and the second that the FDIC has filed in Georgia.
Should Directors Be Held Liable More Often?
In an interesting and provocative June 7, 2011 post on the DealBook blog (here), University of Connecticut Law Professor Steven Davidoff voiced his frustration that public company directors are not held liable more often for problems at their companies. Directors, he says, “have about the same chance of being held liable for the
The Top Ten D&O Stories of 2010
2010 was an eventful year in the world of D&O liability. Congress passed massive financial reform legislation, the Supreme Court issued landmark decisions in important cases and numerous claims emerged as the litigation landscape continued to evolve. With so much going on, it is a challenge to narrow the year’s events down to just the ten
WikiLeaks Disclosures Reveal RBS Chairman’s Admission of ‘”Failure of Fiduciary Responsibilities”
In a prior post, I speculated how WikiLeaks-style disclosures might fuel claims against corporate officials, to the extent that the previously nonpublic information conflicted with public statements. The latest round of WikiLeaks disclosures includes revelations that provide a more specific example of this type of process at work.
The latest revelations are
The Essential Lessons of the “Faithless Servant”
Accompanying the various print media stories this past week about the latest judicial developments involving jailed former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski was the iconic photo of Kozlowski draping his arms over the shoulders of a couple of beauties at his wife’s infamous $2 million birthday bash on Sardinia.
There’s something about this photo that
Thoughts About WikiLeaks and Executive Liability
Though it quickly recovered, Bank of America’s share price declined earlier this week on speculation that the company is the bank whose internal documents WikiLeaks intends to post on the Internet at some future date. According to news reports, the WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has asserted that he has five gigabytes of Bank of America
Executive Protection: D&O Insurance – Limits Selection and Program Structure
In a series of posts, I have been exploring the “nuts and bolts” of D&O insurance. In this post, the seventh in the series, I examine the perennial questions of limits selection and program structure – that is, how much insurance is enough, and how should the insurance be structured? As explained below, these two
Insights: “What to Watch Now in the World of D&O”
The astonishing pace of legislative and judicial changes – just over the last few months alone – underscores how rapidly the liability exposures in the directors and officers arena can be transformed. In the latest issue of InSights (here), I take a look at the current hot topics in the world of directors&rsquo