The Delaware Chancery Court just issued two significant appraisal rulings, the PetSmart opinion on Friday — awarding petitioners the merger price — and the SWS Group decision on Monday, which actually awarded stockholders less than the merger price.  We will post separately about our observations on these rulings.

In the meantime, one immediate reaction is that these decisions might factor into the Supreme Court’s approach to the DFC Global appeal and the upcoming argument in that case on June 7, as the trial judges have again proven that they are ready and willing to peg their fair value award at — or even below — the merger price, without a mandatory Supreme Court rule that might require a merger-price determination result if the sale process proved to be sufficiently robust.