Appraisal rights can offer investors critical protections against corporate actions that do not provide shareholders fair value. Investors often recognize this – as we recently posted, proxy voting guidelines suggest investors vote in favor of appraisal. And then there are the Corporate Governance Principles [.pdf] of the Los Angeles County Employees Retirement Association (LACERA), which list appraisal rights as one of the corporate structures that LACERA finds important in companies it invest in, writing “Appraisal Rights: Investors should be afforded appraisal rights by which they may seek a judicial review of the terms of certain corporate transactions in order to determine fair market value.”