The Cornerstone Report provides several data points concerning the frequency of court awards above merger price in appraisal actions as well as the size of the premiums and distinctions between results involving public and private companies.  Between 2006 and 2018, Cornerstone reports 34 appraisal cases that went to trial; 16 resulted in awards above deal

The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation recently posted an analysis by Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz of the Delaware Supreme Court’s recent decision in SWS, summarily affirming the Delaware Chancery Court’s award of fair value at 7.8% below the merger price.  The authors observe that SWS is the first Delaware

The Harvard Business Law Review has published “The High Cost of Fewer Appraisal Claims in 2017: Premia Down, Agency Costs Up” an article we’ve blogged about previously, including commentary from interested authors.  The HBLR piece, by Matthew Schoenfeld, argues that weakened shareholder litigation reduces the acquisition premium in mergers.  This is another

The Delaware Supreme Court issued its highly-anticipated ruling today in the Dell appraisal case, reversing and remanding the trial court’s 28% premium awarded to the stockholders.  In sum, the court held that where a company is sold in a pristine M&A auction process, the chancery court must give the merger price “heavy weight” in its

The Delaware Supreme Court made its ruling this week in the ISN Software appraisal case.  A three-judge panel (not the full bench) affirmed the Chancery Court’s decision awarding a premium that was more than 2.5 times the merger price, as reported in Law360 [$$].  The Supreme Court affirmed without rendering its own opinion, relying instead

As reported in Law360 [$$], on October 11, 2017 the Delaware Supreme Court heard argument appealing the Chancery Court’s ruling in the ISN Software appraisal case.  We have previously posted on the trial court’s decision here, in which Vice Chancellor Glasscock awarded a premium to the merger price.  The Supreme Court did not rule

Lexology’s Federal Securities Law Blog has this analysis of the recent article we posted about, the High Cost of Fewer Appraisal Claims.  The author, from Porter Wright in Ohio, notes that the recent data on appraisal claims dispel certain arguments made by the anti-appraisal crowd. In particular, he writes, “Prior to the

As reported today in Law360 [$$], the Delaware Supreme Court heard argument yesterday on the chancery court’s ruling in the Dell appraisal case.  The court did not render its decision and did not indicate when it would do so.  We’ll continue to monitor the docket and post when the ruling comes down.

** Note: this

The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation posted yesterday on Merger Negotiations in the Shadow Judicial Appraisal.  In this post, Professors Brian Broughman, Audra Boone, and Antonio Macias address the explosion in merger litigation over the past decade and present their empirical study testing the competing explanations of the ex-ante