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There have recently been several high profile news items about companies using dual class share structures.

First, Facebook announced that it would issue a class of nonvoting shares so that Mark Zuckerberg could maintain his control over the company via his supervoting shares, in a move reminiscent of a similar tactic by Google a couple of years ago.

(A fun game I like to play with my students: compare the stock prices of voting shares of Google with the prices of nonvoting shares, and then talk about the two, in light of the fact that Sergey Brin and Larry Page control the majority of the voting power regardless due to their supervoting shares.)

Second, Lionsgate announced it would be acquiring Starz, in a partially cash, partially stock deal.  Because Starz has a dual class structure – with supervoting power held by John Malone – the arrangement involves Lionsgate creating a new class of nonvoting shares.  Holders of Starz A shares will get cash and nonvoting Lionsgate shares, while holders of Starz B shares (e.g., Malone) get less cash, but both voting and nonvoting Lionsgate shares.

Third, Mondelez just made a bid to buy Hershey – one…

    The doctrine of shareholder oppression protects minority stockholders in closely held corporations from the improper exercise of majority control. When a minority shareholder claims abuse at the hands of a majority investor, courts applying the oppression doctrine will subject the majority’s conduct to a considerable amount of scrutiny.  Approximately thirty-nine states have statutes providing for dissolution or other relief on the grounds of “oppressive actions” by “directors or those in control.”  See Douglas K. Moll & Robert A. Ragazzo, Closely Held Corporations § 7.01[D][1][b], at 7-69 n.192 (LexisNexis 2015).

    The factors that give rise to the oppression problem in the closely held corporation context are also present in the LLC setting.  See, e.g., Douglas K. Moll, Minority Oppression & the Limited Liability Company:  Learning (or Not) from Close Corporation History, 40 Wake Forest L. Rev. 883, 925-57 (2005).  Indeed, the same combination of “no exit” and majority rule—a combination that has left minority shareholders vulnerable in the closely held corporation for decades—exists in the LLC.  Despite these similarities, only nineteen states have LLC statutes providing for dissolution or other relief on the grounds of oppressive conduct or similar language.

    Why the difference?  Why do twice as many states…

Section 11 imposes liability for false statements in registration statements.  See 15 U.S.C. §77k.  Section 11 is distinctive in that the plaintiffs do not have to show fault on the part of any defendants – a sharp contrast with Section 10(b), which requires plaintiffs to prove that the defendants acted with scienter.

When it comes to imposing liability on corporate auditors who approve false financial statements, very often, Section 11 is the only viable option for plaintiffs.  This is because it is very, very hard to show that auditors acted with scienter – especially at the pleading stage.  When a company blows up, typically a lot of information becomes available that would help the plaintiffs demonstrate that there was fault within the corporate ranks.  But it is far less typical for information to become available against the auditor.  So Section 11 is really the only way for plaintiffs to go.

In Querub v. Moore Stephens Hong Kong, 2016 U.S. App. LEXIS 9213 (2d Cir. N.Y. May 20, 2016) (unpublished), the Second Circuit held that for Section 11 purposes, audit opinions are “opinions” in the manner described in Omnicare, Inc. v. Laborers Dist. Council Constr. Indus. Pension Fund, 135…

    Do partners in a general partnership owe a fiduciary duty of loyalty to one another?  “Of course!” you say.  “Everyone knows that.”  In one of the most famous passages in business organizations law, Justice Cardozo observed:

Joint adventurers, like copartners, owe to one another, while the enterprise continues, the duty of the finest loyalty.  Many forms of conduct permissible in a workaday world for those acting at arm’s length, are forbidden to those bound by fiduciary ties.  A trustee is held to something stricter than the morals of the market place.  Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior.  As to this there has developed a tradition that is unbending and inveterate.  Uncompromising rigidity has been the attitude of courts of equity when petitioned to undermine the rule of undivided loyalty by the ‘disintegrating erosion’ of particular exceptions.  Only thus has the level of conduct for fiduciaries been kept at a level higher than that trodden by the crowd.  It will not consciously be lowered by any judgment of this court.

Meinhard v. Salmon, 164 N.E. 545, 546 (N.Y. 1928).

    On its face, RUPA § 404 (1997) seems consistent with Meinhard…

As Rodney Tonkovic discusses in more detail, the plaintiff in Fried v. Stiefel Labs, 814 F.3d 1288 (11th Cir. 2016), has petitioned the Supreme Court to delineate disclosure duties in the context of trading by private companies.

Richard Fried was the former CFO of Stiefel Labs, which was privately held.  As an employee, he received stock as part of a pension plan.  When he retired, he sold the stock back to Stiefel (I don’t know much about the market for Stiefel stock, but I’m guessing that, since it was privately held, Fried didn’t think he had many alternative options).  Sadly for Fried, shortly after his sale, it was announced that Stiefel was being acquired by GlaxoSmithKline, and that negotiations had been in the works at the time of his sale.  By selling to Steifel instead of waiting for GSK’s acquisition, he missed out on, roughly, an additional $1.62 million.  He sued Stiefel, alleging that Stiefel had been obligated to disclose the negotiations to him at the time of his sale.

This is not something that comes up very often, but the case law that does exist tends to hold that insider trading principles apply both to private…

    Thanks to the BLPB for inviting me to guest blog!  I’m excited to be here.  I’ll probably write a few substantive posts to start out and finish up with some musings on teaching.

    Here’s a head scratcher:  interested director provisions have long been a part of corporation statutes, and they are making appearances in LLC statutes as well.  The statutes generally address transactions between a corporation and one or more of its directors (or between the corporation and another entity to which the director is affiliated) and provide a mechanism for cleansing the “stink” of the conflict of interest. 

    The fundamental problem with interested director transactions is that we do not trust the interested director to put the entity’s interests before his own.  Correspondingly, in such transactions there is a need to find a “trustworthy decisionmaker” to review the transaction with the entity’s interests in mind.  See, e.g., Franklin Gevurtz, Corporation Law § 4.2.1, at 325 (2000); Douglas K. Moll & Robert A. Ragazzo, Closely Held Corporations § 6.03[B][2][b], at 6-59 (LexisNexis 2015).  Interested director statutes in corporate law can be viewed as providing three trustworthy decisionmaker options:  disinterested directors, disinterested shareholders, or a court.  Section 144 of the Delaware General Corporation Law is fairly typical of such statutes:

§ 144 Interested directors; quorum.

(a) No contract or transaction between a corporation and 1 or more of its directors or officers, or between a corporation and any other corporation, partnership, association, or other organization in which 1 or more of its directors or officers, are directors or officers, or have a financial interest, shall be void or voidable solely for this reason, or solely because the director or officer is present at or participates in the meeting of the board or committee which authorizes the contract or transaction, or solely because any such director’s or officer’s votes are counted for such purpose, if:

(1) The material facts as to the director’s or officer’s relationship or interest and as to the contract or transaction are disclosed or are known to the board of directors or the committee, and the board or committee in good faith authorizes the contract or transaction by the affirmative votes of a majority of the disinterested directors, even though the disinterested directors be less than a quorum; or

(2) The material facts as to the director’s or officer’s relationship or interest and as to the contract or transaction are disclosed or are known to the stockholders entitled to vote thereon, and the contract or transaction is specifically approved in good faith by vote of the stockholders; or

(3) The contract or transaction is fair as to the corporation as of the time it is authorized, approved or ratified, by the board of directors, a committee or the stockholders.

(b) Common or interested directors may be counted in determining the presence of a quorum at a meeting of the board of directors or of a committee which authorizes the contract or transaction.

    Although § 144(a)(2) does not explicitly indicate that a vote of disinterested shareholders is required, case law in Delaware has imposed a disinterested requirement.  See, e.g., Marciano v. Nakash, 535 A.2d 400, 405 n.3 (Del. 1987); In re Wheelabrator Technologies, Inc. S’holders Litig., 663 A.2d 1194, 1203 (Del. Ch. 1995).  If the purpose of the statute is to find a trustworthy decisionmaker—i.e., a decisionmaker lacking a conflict of interest in the transaction at issue—this disinterested requirement is eminently sensible.  Moreover, why require disinterested directors for director authorization, but permit interested shareholders for shareholder authorization?  After all, particularly in a closely held corporation, the interested directors are almost always significant shareholders.  If they are not to be trusted to bless the conflicted transaction at the director level, why trust them to bless the transaction at the shareholder level?  See also MBCA §§ 8.61(b)(2), 8.63(a) (requiring disinterested shares for shareholder authorization purposes).

 

Keep reading only if you have 3 minutes that you don’t care about being productive or relating to business law, at least not directly.

The Federal Election Committee issued a proposed draft of an advisory opinion on a question brought by Huckabee for President,  Inc.–the committee responsible for the 2016 presidential campaign of  former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.  The Committee wanted to know if it can use part of a legal defense fund to pay a settlement. The FEC says yes.  This isn’t an election law blog, so I won’t go into the details.  The litigation arose over the campaign’s use of the song “Eye of the Tiger“.  The FEC,  feeling quite cheeky writes the following: 

The complaint, seeking injunctive relief and monetary damages, alleged that 21 the Committee had violated federal copyright law by playing the song “Eye of the Tiger” at a campaign event on September 8, 2015. The Committee, rising up to the challenge of its rival, incurred attorneys’ fees and other expenses in defending itself in that litigation. After briefly relishing the thrill of the fight, the parties settled the lawsuit for an undisclosed amount.

Has the political circus of the 2016…