Authors from Potter Anderson write in the spring 2018 edition of Delaware Laws Governing Business Entities [$$] that recent developments in appraisal have restored ‘balance’ to the remedy.  Citing case law where courts have deferred to deal price, amendments to the appraisal statute, and the statutory authorization of distributed ledger (i.e., blockchain) technology for corporations, the authors posit that some kind of ‘balance’ is being restored to what they propose was an otherwise unbalanced remedy.

History may not be so linear.  Appraisal, as the authors acknowledge, has over a century of history in Delaware alone.  The appraisal remedy was, for a long time, relatively unused.  It has become far more utilized in recent years, and new developments, including technological change, may well alter the appraisal space in new and unforeseen ways going forward.