Do Your Duty As You See It: Recent Decisions on Board Duties and Corporate Governance
On March 14 2014 the Delaware Chancery Court found RBC Capital Advisors (RBC) liable for aiding and abetting the breach of fiduciary duty of the board of directors of Rural/Metro, stemming from the sale of the company to Warburg Pincus.
While the details of the court’s decision are contained in Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster’s 91-page opinion, several salient points are important to understand:
Edgewater Growth Capital Partners LP v. H.I.G. Capital, Inc., 68 A.3d 197 (2013)
CASE SNAPSHOT
In Anderson v Krafft-Murphy Co. Inc., 2013 Del. LEXIS 597 (Del. Nov. 26, 2013), the Delaware Supreme Court held that Sections 278 and 279 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, 8 Del. C.
In Jagodzinski v. Silicon Valley Innovation Co., No. 6203, Slip Op. (Del. Ch. Feb.
The Delaware Chancery Court recently found that exigent circumstances necessitated the appointment of a receiver for an insolvent company under section 291 of the Delaware General Corporation Law (DGCL). The insolvent company at issue had $1.9 million in tax debt and was at risk of losing a favorable settlement opportunity with the IRS due to an impasse between voting and non-voting shareholders.
In response to a rehabilitation plan for Delaware insurance company Manhattan Re proposed by its receiver, American Motorists Insurance Company (a reinsurer of Manhattan Re) filed objections with the Delaware Court of Chancery. AMICO argued that the plan should be rejected because the receiver improperly intended to dispose of certain cash holdings that AMICO claimed constituted cash collateral under its reinsurance agreements with the company.
The opinion issued by the Delaware Supreme Court (the “Court”) in the matter of CML V, LLC v. Bax, No. 735, 2010 (Del. Supr. Sept.
In Trenwick America Litigation Trust v. Ernst & Young, LLP, 906 A.2d 168 (Del. Ch. 2006), the Delaware Court of Chancery definitively weighed in on the tort claim that has become known by the popular name “deepening insolvency” when it dismissed a “deepening insolvency” claim brought by a litigation trust to recover money for the benefit of the creditors of a bankrupt estate.
Delaware companies take note: a state court has ruled that companies in apparent good financial health may not use the bankruptcy process to avoid shareholder approval of an asset sale—even in situations in which a shareholder vote may be difficult to obtain.