Here is the text of a letter I submitted in advance of the Delaware House Judiciary Committee Meeting regarding the proposed amendments to the DGCL:

Dear Chair Griffith:

I write to express my concerns about S.B. 313, and in particular the proposed amendments to Section 122 of the Delaware General Corporation Law (DGCL).  I believe the proposed amendments will cause Delaware to lose control over its law.

As proposed, the statute authorizes a shift of corporate governance from the charter to private contracts.  Corporate charters are subject to the law of the chartering state, thus, Delaware law.  Private stockholder agreements are not necessarily subject to the law of the chartering state.  That means other states’ laws would govern the interpretation of these contracts, and the appropriate remedies for any breaches.[1]

Additionally, the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) provides that agreements to arbitrate disputes “shall be valid, irrevocable, and enforceable.”[2]  In practical effect, the FAA bars states, including state courts, from prohibiting or regulating arbitration agreements, and requires that such agreements be enforced as written.  It is likely that the FAA does not apply to corporate charters,[3] which is why Delaware was able to adopt Section 115 of the DGCL, prohibiting corporations from including forum provisions in their charters that would bar access to the Delaware courts.[4]

By contrast, the FAA almost certainly would apply to stockholder agreements.  If parties to a stockholder agreement agree to arbitrate disputes, a Delaware court will be required to enforce that provision.  Those disputes could easily include questions about the legality of the contract under Delaware law, or whether a stockholder took on fiduciary obligations, and abused them, as a result of the control conferred by the contract.[5]  As a result, important questions of Delaware law would be decided by non-Delaware actors, often in confidential proceedings.  Arbitration provisions could also bind public stockholders who bring derivative actions on the corporation’s behalf.[6]   Even stockholders who bring direct actions regarding stockholder agreements, on behalf of themselves rather than the corporate entity, may find themselves bound to arbitrate disputes regarding the agreement.[7]

Moreover, as drafted, the amendments would explicitly permit stockholder agreements to select a forum for disputes outside of Delaware – either in arbitration or another state.  Once again, that would mean that other states, or arbitrators, would decide whether the stockholder contract violated Delaware law, and whether the stockholder abused its governance rights under the contract.

Delaware’s value to incorporators includes its robust body of caselaw decided by expert Delaware judges. The proposed amendments endanger that value proposition.

                                                                    Sincerely,

                                                                    Ann M. Lipton

 

[1] See generally Ann M. Lipton, Inside Out (or, One State to Rule Them All): New Challenges to the Internal Affairs Doctrine, 58 Wake Forest L. 321 (2023); see also KT4 Partners v. Palantir, 203 A.3d 738 (Del. 2019) (involving an investor in a Delaware corporation with a stockholder agreement governed by California law).

[2] 9 U.S.C. § 2.

[3] See generally Ann M. Lipton, Manufactured Consent: The Problem of Arbitration Clauses in Corporate Charters and Bylaws, 104 Geo. L.J. 583 (2016).

[4] Del. Code tit. 8, § 115.

[5] See, e.g., Basho Techs. Holdco B, LLC v. Georgetown Basho Invs., LLC, No. 11802, 2018 WL 3326693 (Del. Ch. July 6, 2018) (involving such a scenario).

[6] See, e.g., Ernst & Young, LLP v. Tucker ex rel. HealthSouth Corp., 940 So. 2d 269 (Ala. 2006).

[7] See Richard J. Tyler, Kicking and Screaming: Joinder of Non-signatories in Arbitration Proceedings, 75 Disp. Resol. J. 111 (2020).

Like so many others, I have wanted to say a word about West Palm Beach Firefighters’ Pension Fund v. Moelis & Company, 311 A.3d 809 (Del. Ch. 2024).  My angle is a bit different from that of many others.  It derives from my 15-year practice background, my 24-year law teaching background, and my 39-year bar service background.  It focuses on a doctrinal analysis undertaken through a policy lens.  But I want to note here the value of Ann Lipton’s existing posts on Moelis and the related proposed addition of a new § 122(18) to the General Corporation Law of the State of Delaware (DGCL).  Her posts can be found here, here, here, and here.  (Sorry if I missed one, Ann!)  Ben Edwards also published a related post here.  They (and others offering commentary that I have read) raise and touch on some of the matters I address here, but not with the same legislative policy focus.

I apologize at the outset for the length of this post.  As habitual readers know, long posts are “not my style” as a blogger.  This matter is one of relatively urgent legislative importance, however, and I am eager to get my thoughts out to folks here.

I begin by referencing the DGCL provision in the eye of the storm.  DGCL § 141(a) provides for management of the business and affairs of a Delaware corporation by or under the direction of the corporation’s board of directors, except as otherwise provided in the corporation’s certificate of incorporation or the DGCL.  In Moelis, Vice Chancellor Travis Laster found various provisions in a stockholder agreement unlawful under DGCL § 141(a).  Specifically, a series of governance-oriented contractual arrangements at issue in Moelis were not authorized under the corporation’s certificate of incorporation or another provision of the DGCL.

The tension in this space involving DGCL § 141(a) is not new.  For many years, the legal validity of so-called stockholder agreements—technically, agreements (as opposed to charter provisions) that shift governance power from the directors of a corporation to one or more of its stockholders—has been questionable for most Delaware corporations, including public companies.  (I say “many years” because the legal validity of these agreements was an issue I routinely wrestled with before I left the full-time private practice of law in 2000.) 

The DGCL is different from the Model Business Corporation Act (MBCA) in this regard.  The MBCA has long had a broad-based statutory provision, MBCA § 7.32, authorizing shareholder agreements under specified conditions.  States adopting the MBCA have made a (presumably) conscious choice to embrace shareholder governance under the circumstances provided in the MBCA, including through § 7.32.  The MBCA’s provision expressing the management authority of the corporation’s board of directors, MBCA § 8.01(b), expressly references MBCA § 7.32, providing that:

[e]xcept as may be provided in an agreement authorized under section 7.32, and subject to any limitation in the articles of incorporation permitted by section 2.02(b), all corporate powers shall be exercised by or under the authority of the board of directors, and the business and affairs of the corporation shall be managed by or under the direction, and subject to the oversight, of the board of directors.

There is no analogous provision in the DGCL.  The only way to be sure that one could accomplish a shift in governance power from directors to stockholders under the DGCL has been for a corporation either to include the governance provisions in its certificate of incorporation or to organize as a close corporation under Subchapter XIV.  Close corporation status requires charter-based notification and conformity to a number of statutory requirements set forth in DGCL §§ 341 & 342, including that the certificate of incorporation provide that the stock be represented by certificated shares “held of record by not more than a specified number of persons, not exceeding 30,” that the stock be subject to transfer restrictions, and that there not be a “public offering” of the stock. DGCL § 342(a)(1)-(3).  Thus, by legislative design, statutory close corporation status is not available to publicly held corporations organized under Delaware law (which makes total sense for those who understand what a closely held corporation is, in a general sense).

Members of the Delaware State Bar Association (DSBA) Corporation Law Section know all of this well.  As leaders in reviewing and proposing changes to the DGCL over the years, this group of folks has thoughtfully weighed policy considerations relating to the DGCL’s application to the myriad situations that Delaware corporations may face.  Without having researched or inquired about the matter, I find it hard to believe that the section has not previously discussed the desirability of an express statutory provision allowing for the approval and execution of stockholder agreements outside a corporation’s certificate of incorporation.  The matter has been addressed by the Executive Council of the Tennessee Bar Association’s Business Law Section, which engages in similar legislative initiatives in Tennessee, more than once during the time I have been serving on it.  I therefore assume that the choice to refrain from proposing a specific statute authorizing stockholder agreements outside a corporation’s certificate of incorporation over the years has been both informed and intentional.

Yet, earlier today, Senate Bill 313 passed in the Senate Chamber of the Delaware General Assembly.  In that bill, vetted and approved by the DSBA Corporation Law Section and blessed by the DSBA Executive Committee, the longstanding policy decision to refrain from allowing stockholder agreements outside of the certificate of incorporation or Subchapter XIV is being summarily reversed through the proposal to adopt a new DGCL § 122(18)—an alteration of the corporate powers provision of the DGCL.  That new proposed DGCL section provides a corporation with the power to enter into stockholder agreements within certain bounds, but those bounds are relatively broad.

As others have noted (at least in part), the drafting of the proposed DGCL § 122(18) (and the related additional changes to DGCL § 122) reflects a belt-and-suspenders approach and is otherwise awkward.  Multiple sentences are crammed into this one new subpart of DGCL §122 to effectuate the drafters’ aims.  The DGCL has been criticized for its complex drafting in the past (resulting in, among other things, a project creating a simplified DGCL), and the approach taken by the drafters of the proposed DGCL § 122 changes adds to the complexity of the statute in unnecessary ways.  A provision this significant should be addressed in a separate statutory section, the approach taken in MBCA §7.32.  That new section then can be cross-referenced in DGCL § 141(b)—and, if deemed necessary, DGCL § 122.  Breaking out the provision in its own section also should allow legislators to more easily and coherently identify strengths and weaknesses in the drafting and build in or remove any constraints on stockholder governance that they may deem necessary as the proposed provision gets continued attention in the Delaware State House of Representatives.  I offer that as a drafting suggestion.

Apart from the inelegance of the drafting, however, I have one large and important question as Senate Bill 313 continues to move through the Delaware legislative process: do members of the Delaware General Assembly voting on this bill fully understand the large shift in public policy represented by the introduction of DGCL § 122(18)?  If so, then they act on an informed basis and live with the consequences, as they do with any legislation they pass that is signed into law.  If not, we all must work harder to enable that understanding. 

It is all fine and good for us to point out how hasty the drafting process has been, how traditional debate and procedures may have been short-changed or subverted, how waiting for the Delaware Supreme Court to act on the appeal of the Chancery Court decision before proceeding is prudent, etc.  But the fact of the matter has been that potential and actual stockholders of Delaware corporations have been able to rely exclusively on charter-based exceptions to the management authority of the board of directors—whether those exception are authorized in Subchapter XIV of the DGCL or otherwise.  This has meant that prospective equity investors in a Delaware corporation knew to carefully consider a corporation’s certificate of incorporation to identify any pre-existing constraints on the management authority of the board of directors before investing.  This also has meant that any new constraints on the board of directors’ authority to manage the corporation’s business and affairs required a charter amendment of some kind—either a board-approved and stockholder-approved amendment of the certificate of incorporation or the board’s approval of a certificate of designations under charter-based authority of which existing stockholders should be aware.

Ann noted this issue in a previous post.  The enactment of proposed DGCL § 122(18) will make it more challenging for potential equity investors to identify the locus/loci of management power in the corporation.  Although both the certificate of incorporation and any stockholder agreement would be required to be filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for reporting companies (the latter as an instrument defining the right of security holders under paragraph (b)(4) or as a material contract (b)(10) of Regulation S-K Item 601), the current draft of proposed DGCL § 122(18) does not provide that a copy of any contract authorized under its provisions be filed with the Delaware Secretary of State or that its existence be noted on stock certificates (a requirement included in MBCA §7.32(c)).  In addition, stockholders will lose their franchise if the stockholder agreement would otherwise have required a stockholder vote.

Finally, it seems important to note that the judicial doctrine or independent legal significance—or equal dignity—has been strong in Delaware over the years as a factor in the interpretation of Delaware corporate law.  This has helped practitioners and the judiciary to navigate difficult issues in advising clients about the outcomes of Delaware corporate law debates.  The rule typically has been that, if one takes a path afforded by the statute, they get what the statute provides.  And if one does not take a provided statutory path, they cannot later be heard to argue for what the statute provides for users of that untaken statutory path. 

Classically, in dicta in Nixon v. Blackwell, 626 A.2d 1366 (1993), Chief Justice Veasey wrote (on pp. 1380-81) about the importance of DGCL Subchapter XIV in construing corporate governance arrangements in light of the doctrine of independent legal significance:

 . . . the provisions of Subchapter XIV relating to close corporations and other statutory schemes preempt the field in their respective areas. It would run counter to the spirit of the doctrine of independent legal significance and would be inappropriate judicial legislation for this Court to fashion a special judicially-created rule for minority investors when the entity does not fall within those statutes, or when there are no negotiated special provisions in the certificate of incorporation, by-laws, or stockholder agreements.

With the passage of proposed DGCL § 122(18), parts of Subchapter XIV of the DGCL will seemingly be rendered vestigial (i.e., they will no longer have independent legal significance).  Consideration of this and any other potential collateral damage to the interpretation of Delaware corporate law that may be created by the enactment of proposed DGCL § 122(18) should be carefully undertaken and, as desired, additional changes to the DGCL should be debated before voting on Senate Bill 313 is undertaken in the Delaware State House of Representatives.

I do not argue for a specific result in this post.  Rather, I mean to illuminate further the significance of the decision facing the Delaware General Assembly (and, potentially, the decision of the Governor of the State of Delaware) in the review of proposed DGCL § 122(18).  In doing so, I admit to some sympathy for those who may have clients with stockholder agreements they now know or suspect to be unlawful under the Moelis opinion.  In all candor, any legislation on this topic should more directly address those existing agreements given that the provisions of proposed DGCL § 122(18) are not a mere clarification of existing law.  Agreements not re-adopted under any new legislative authority may be found unlawful in the absence of clarity on this point.  As a reference point, I note that, in amending MBCA § 7.32 to remove a previous 10-year duration limit, the drafters specified the effect on pre-existing agreements in MBCA § 7.32(h).  Take that as another drafting suggestion . . . .

I welcome comments on any or all of what I offer here.  If I have anything incorrect, please correct me.  Regardless, I hope this post provides some additional information to those in the Delaware General Assembly and elsewhere who have an interest in proposed DGCL § 122(18).

Corporate redomestication has been in the news.  Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal ran an op-ed I penned with Nevada’s Secretary of state, Francisco Aguilar, explaining why some corporations seek to redomesticate from Delaware to Nevada or elsewhere.  Ann also covered the issue today in the context of Tesla’s redomestication to Texas.  

Although the Tesla redomestication proposal apparently passed at the shareholder meeting, not all redomestication proposals will pass.  Notably, Glass Lewis recommended against the Texas reincorporation.  I have some faith that states like Nevada will react and legislatively change their laws if they prove a barrier to securing additional incorporations.  After all, Delaware has been changing its laws to ensure it remains attractive for decades.  Indeed, much of the movement in Delaware around proposed amendments to Delaware’s corporate law seems aimed at maintaining Delaware’s dominance and securing continued incorporations.

The key will be striking the right balance between investor protection and shielding managers from possibly unwarranted and value-destroying litigation costs. Ultimately, striking the right balance is hard.  Under a too lenient standard for litigation, corporations and shareholders will suffer from costs driven by excess litigation.  Under too demanding a regime, shareholders may suffer losses from uncompensated fiduciary breaches with courts refusing to intervene despite some misconduct.

One of the best things about being a corporate law professor is that it continues to actively develop.  In her post today, Ann gave the example of a controller possibly seeking to monetize her control premium personally instead of splitting it with all shareholders when selling. The WSJ story frames it as the controller losing trust in a CEO “after extensive back and forth with him that resulted in her family getting less cash from the deal than in earlier proposals” Exactly how Nevada law would treat this issue warrants development, but I doubt it would allow a majority shareholder to wantonly expropriate value from minority shareholders.  While Nevada does have a broad business judgment statute, it only applies to officers and directors–not to shareholders that may owe fiduciary duties.  Yet the statute does not currently clearly address the obligations controlling shareholders owe to minority shareholders. 

It’s an area of Nevada law that needs more development.  As Keith Bishop pointed out in an email to me on this, there are some Nevada cases.  One is Foster v. Arata.  It found that stockholders in a dominant position owe fiduciary duties.  Another is Shivers v. AMERCO.  It’s a Ninth Circuit decision that also recognized that majority shareholders owe duties.  It’ll be an area to continue watch.

Whenever I talk about Elon Musk and corporate governance, an objection is raised to the effect of, “Isn’t Musk sui generis?  Can we really take any lessons from him?”

It’s a fair question, but if Musk is sui generis, there is no meaning in any of this, and that’s no fun at all.  So, for the purposes of this post, I’m putting it aside.

Take One:  What a supreme failure of the SEC

I’m sorry, I have to start here.  Sometime in the middle of the night (I was asleep), Elon Musk tweeted an extremely informal spreadsheet screencapture of the purported shareholder vote, and for the next several hours – including during actual trading – no one knew if he was telling the truth.  I spoke to reporters, which is a thing I do now whenever Musk is in the news (i.e., on days that end in “y”), and they were simply not sure whether to take the tweet seriously.  Initial headlines read “Elon Musk says” rather than “The vote is.”

It is unacceptable that the CEO of an S&P 500 company could publicly release extremely material information and have the entire world spend multiple hours wondering if he was just kidding.

I can only assume the tweet was not, in fact, reviewed by the Twitter Sitter, even though Musk lost on all his attempts to challenge his settlement.

If the SEC cannot ensure the basic accuracy of something as simple as a report of the results of a shareholder vote on one of the most widely traded, publicly watched companies in history, what are we even doing here?  The phrase “You had one job” takes on new meaning.

Take Two: What is the value of fiduciary litigation?

The debate has long raged over whether fiduciary litigation brings any actual benefit to shareholders.  You can ask about that in specific cases – are these all nuisance suits that only benefit the attorneys? – and you can also ask more broadly, i.e., maybe having the system of fiduciary litigation in general keeps directors on the straight and narrow, and ultimately contributes to shareholder wealth systemically.

Notwithstanding Tesla’s assertions to the contrary, I think it’s fair to say most spectators associated a move to Texas with a reduction in fiduciary litigation, or at least, successful litigation.  Partly, this is just a mood, i.e., the expectation that Texas judges presiding over cases involving Texas employer Elon Musk, under the watchful eye of Musk’s good friend Greg Abbott, are more likely to rule in Tesla’s favor.  But it’s also potentially built into Texas law, which may be interpreted as requiring plaintiffs to clear a higher bar for showing a lack of board independence.

So what does it mean, that shareholders – especially institutional shareholders – voted to reincorporate?

Well, one story is, they agree that fiduciary litigation is rent-seeking, contrary to shareholder interests, and does nothing more than distract boards from doing their actual jobs.  In this story, Tesla’s shareholders voted to limit the nuisances that threatened the ability of Elon Musk to run the company as he sees fit – in a manner that would ultimately maximize the benefits to Tesla shareholders.  In other words, fiduciary litigation is too powerful, in that it inhibits too much managerial flexibility by imposing inappropriate one-size-fits-all standards.

But another story is that shareholders were, in fact, coerced, in the sense that they believed defying Musk’s wishes would cause him to violate his fiduciary duties to Tesla by redirecting its resources to his private companies.  But if that’s the story, you have to also believe that shareholders thought there was no remedy for that kind of breach.  After all, even though there are new complaints against Musk alleging that he misappropriated Tesla resources and opportunities, at the end of the day, no court can literally stand over him 24/7 and make him develop AI.  So under that view, fiduciary litigation is too weak to protect shareholder interests.

Either way, though, the conclusion might be that fiduciary litigation – be it too strong or too weak – doesn’t add value to shareholders.

(A third story, incidentally, is that shareholders are okay with Musk not maximizing Tesla’s value, if he’s saving humanity or taking us to Mars or whatever, and so they’ll willingly hand over Tesla assets for that project.  Which is actually really interesting and not entirely without evidentiary support, but would seem to come more from retail than institutions.)

Take Three: What does this mean for the proposed DGCL amendments?

I’ve previously blogged about proposed amendments to the DGCL (prior posts here, here, here, here, and here). None of those amendments are directly relevant to Musk (except in the very abstract way that they would authorize a shareholder agreement to substitute for the kind of dual-class recapitalization currently prohibited by listing rules).  But there is a theme here, and it’s that Delaware has become too strict in terms of limiting the flexibility of insiders, managers, and large investors.  And the Texas move, especially if it heralds additional flight, could be read as confirming that perception.  If so, that might weigh in favor of the proposed amendments – or at least, tempering at the Delaware Supreme Court level.

But a corollary to that is – and now we’re really veering off Musk and into the DGCL proposals – what is the larger political picture?  Delaware may claim that its law is shaped by balancing the interests of shareholders and managers, but it’s possible that shareholders in fact have very little interest or influence (here’s a paper discussing the lack of institutional investor bargaining power re: private equity; and in general, the fact that investors were so willing to invest in Chinese VIEs despite increasing warnings by the SEC regarding the lack of shareholder protections tells me something, anyway, about how much attention investors actually pay to governance rights ex ante).   

If that’s true, why does Delaware provide any protections for shareholders at all?  Well, one answer is – Delaware operates in competition with the SEC, which provides mandatory investor protection.  And so, Delaware strategically protects investors just enough to keep the SEC and Congress off its turf.  And corporate managers understand that dynamic, and even tolerate it, in tacit collusion with Delaware, to ward off federal intervention.

But what does the world look like when federal intervention is off the table, perhaps because we have a court that will strike down any move the SEC makes?   Maybe it looks very much like this world, where Delaware leaps at the chance to eliminate investor voice.

Take Four: How easy is it to escape Delaware’s protections via reincorporation?

This is obviously the main issue in TripAdvisor, but I can’t help considering the issue in light of the woes of – yes, Paramount.  Because according to news reports, a big stumbling block in Shari Redstone’s attempt to sell her stake is that (1) she wants to receive more consideration than the public shareholders but (2) she fears the liability would follow.  That liability comes from Delaware law.  Take Nevada, for instance.  It seems Nevada would give a free pass to controller transactions, absent evidence of intentional misconduct, fraud, or knowing violation of law, and it does not seem as though a simple conflict of interest rises to that level.

So, can we imagine a world where Shari Redstone uses her controlling stake to force a reincorporation to Nevada, and then sells the company on her terms?  I can imagine it, sure, and the lesson here is how difficult it is for states to maintain different standards so long as managers can choose the law to govern their affairs.

Of course, if you truly believe that the market will police all of this, then, maybe you think that, in the future, shareholders of Delaware companies will demand charter protections against reincorporation without disinterested shareholder approval.

Or, maybe, contra what I said in Take Three, you believe investors will pay less for their stakes if they do not have governance rights.  Which is exactly what this paper demonstrates regarding firms backed by PE that go public with shareholder agreements in place.  Except the dollar figures still appear to be so high that PE firms are willing to make that sacrifice in order to retain the private benefits of control.  I’d argue – as I said previously – that since the financial power associated with control translates into political power, we have an explanation for why PE firms would make that trade.  And that really is about much more than the market reaching an appropriate discount for appropriation risk; that is a problem for the Rest of Us.

Take Five: Superstar CEOs

There’s been a lot of talk about them but, in Tesla’s case, there’s a really specific issue on the table.  What if, Tesla is just a car company?  What if, Tesla’s current market valuation is entirely untethered from its actual potential – under the direction of Musk or anyone else?  What if the only reason for its stratospheric valuation is because Musk has a PT Barnum like ability to convince people of a mythical future that will never come to pass?

I am a lawyer, I’m not a financial analyst, and I’m not going to weigh in on whether that’s correct. I am safe in saying, however, that there’s certainly a contingent of relatively informed people who feel that way (though certainly not everyone).

Indulge me, for a moment, in a thought experiment.  If the critics are right, that puts Tesla’s investors in a bind.  Elon Musk may be mismanaging the company, in the sense of diverting resources to his private firms and stocking the board with his bestest buddies and doing whatever he’s doing while high, but there is no solution via traditional channels.  Any activist move to oust him and install better governance will still result in a drop in stock price to reflect Tesla’s true potential.  Current shareholders are benefitting, in other words, from misplaced confidence.  (Cf James Spindler on why existing shareholders prefer securities fraud).  That means, they cannot risk instilling any kind of discipline at all.

If that’s true, then we are back to where we started.  Because if there’s one other thing the securities laws are intended to do, beyond ensure the basic accuracy of public material information, it’s to keep stock prices at least relatively tethered to corporate fundamental value, so as to ensure efficient capital allocation.  And for whatever reason (Elon Musk personally, the difficulty with policing projections of future performance, the irrationality of retail, take your pick), that process has entirely failed in the case of Tesla.  And we are now witnessing the downstream effects.

I just came back on Sunday from the 2024 Law and Society Association Annual Meeting in Denver.  It was, as always, a stimulating few days.  A number of us business law profs were in attendance.  The corporate and securities law collaborative research network (CRN46) habitually organizes several programs.  This year was no exception.  I was privileged to be featured in two.  But I will say more on my participation in the conference later.

Today, I want to highlight an interesting piece that was presented at the conference during one of the CRN46 paper panels: “The Original Meaning of Equity “ by Asaf Raz (forthcoming in the Washington University Law Review).  The SSRN abstract follows:

Equity is seeing a new wave of attention in scholarship and practice. Yet, as this Article argues, our current understanding of equity is divided between two distinct meanings: on one side, the federal courts, guided by the Supreme Court, tend to discuss equity as the precise set of remedies known at a fixed point in the past (static equity). On the other, state courts—most prominently, in Delaware—administer equity to preserve the correct operation of law in unforeseeable situations (substantive equity). Only the latter interpretation complies with the historical and functional idea of equity.

This Article makes the first detailed argument for resolving the problem of static equity, and reinvigorating substantive equity in the federal judiciary and the broader legal community. To do so, this Article takes a highly innovative step, by connecting the federal discussion with an in-depth analysis of the legal scene where equity is employed most systematically (and most faithfully to its historical roots): Delaware law, including its corporate law. As this Article demonstrates, substantive equity is fully compatible with originalism and textualism; the “equity” mentioned in the Constitution and later federal texts is substantive, not static, equity. Federal law has always operated within the sphere of the common law, and this Article offers a new bridge between the two, exposing the members of each community to insights from the other, in a manner that promotes both the original understanding of the legal text, justice, and the rule of law.

Asaf’s presentation of the piece at the conference generated several questions and an interesting extended discussion.  The term “equity” has many meanings in law that we must be conversant with in our work.  We also need to help students define “equity” in context and sort out its varied meanings as they learn about law in its multifarious manifestations.  These factors alone make the article a valuable read.  However, more centrally, I applaud Asaf for taking on the task of adding some clarity to the term and on connecting his research to both federal (including constitutional) and Delaware law in novel ways.  I look forward to spending more time with this piece.  And I know Asaf welcomes your comments!

Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law recently published the proceedings of the 2023 Business Law Prof Blog symposium, held at UT Law in Knoxville back in October.  The proceedings can be found here.  As is customary, the issue includes articles written by the principal presenters—bloggers from here at the BLPB—and related commentary from UT Law faculty and students.

My contribution to the symposium was a piece called Business Lawyer Leadership: Valuing Relationships.  The abstract is set forth below.

Business lawyers are surrounded by relationships because of the nature of their work. Businesses are relational; business associations law is relational; business lawyering is relational. Business lawyering, in all its manifestations, is a practice steeped in the lawyer’s awareness and management of, as well as their participation in, the layered sets of relationships found in businesses and business associations law.

This article recognizes these important connections between business law practice and relationships. It approaches each of them in turn. The substantial take-away is that a business lawyer can best lead by understanding the inherent value of relationships to business lawyering and leveraging that understanding through focused effort that includes the employment of, among other things, relationship management skills. Relationship management—together with the other components of emotional intelligence and other relational traits, skills, and practices—affords business lawyers important tools for building and sustaining healthy relationships.

Those who know me well will recognize a lot of “me” in this piece.  Relationship building and relationship management are high priorities for me.  Through this article, I attempt to unravel some of the reasons why all business lawyers may want to place a premium on relationship building and management.  Relationships truly are deeply connected to business, business law, and business law practice in ways that make relational leadership skills valuable.

I swear I wasn’t going to blog about Elon Musk this week; I had several other ideas planned, but then someone went ahead and filed a new complaint in Delaware and I just can’t help myself.

In Ball v. Tesla, the plaintiff challenges both the upcoming pay ratification vote, and the Texas redomestication.  The arguments against pay ratification are pretty much the ones you’ve already heard in this space (as well as ones advanced by Prof. Elson in his proposed amicus brief), and we’ve pretty much exhausted those so I’ll skip it.

As for the Texas redomestication vote, the plaintiff claims that the required threshold to leave Delaware is 2/3 rather than a simple majority of outstanding shares due to certain provisions in Tesla’s charter.

I’ve previously blogged about this issue at Tesla; it has a staggered board and keeps trying reduce the stagger, but it can’t get the required 2/3 outstanding vote, because so many shareholders do not cast ballots at all. 

When Tesla drafted its charter way back when, it set about minimizing shareholder rights as much as it could under Delaware law.  It instituted a staggered board, it prohibited shareholders from acting by written consent – they can only act at a duly called meeting – and prohibited them from calling a meeting themselves.  And then, to ensure shareholders couldn’t amend the charter and remove the protections, it insulated those provisions with a two-thirds voting requirement to amend them (and a two-thirds vote requirement to amend the voting standard to amend them):

Notwithstanding any other provision of this Certificate of Incorporation … the affirmative vote of the holders of at least 66 2/3% of the voting power of all then outstanding shares of capital stock of the corporation entitled to vote generally in the election of directors, voting together as a single class, shall be required to amend, alter or repeal, or adopt any provision as part of this Certificate of Incorporation inconsistent with the purpose and intent of, Article V, Article VI, Article VII or this Article IX …

Now Tesla wants to move to Texas.  But Texas guarantees more shareholder rights than Delaware.  Specifically, in Texas, corporations cannot eliminate either the right of shareholders to act by written consent, nor the right of shareholders to call special meetings.  So when Tesla drafted a new Texas charter, it tried to minimize those rights as much as possible.  Specifically, the Texas charter permits action only by unanimous written consent, and permits shareholders to call a special meeting only if 50% of shareholders demand it (the highest threshold Texas permits).  Additionally, as Tesla notes in its proxy, under Texas law, even if shareholders call a special meeting, the Board may still postpone or reschedule it.

So, in Ball v. Tesla, the shareholder claims that these new charter provisions expand the rights granted in the original charter, and therefore, can only be amended – and the redomestication can only be approved – with the approval of two-thirds of the outstanding shares.

What happens next?

Well, I’m assuming Ball will be in some way consolidated with Tornetta.  I also assume the good attorneys at BLBG will be not at all happy about the challenge to the pay package, because they want to maintain control over the litigation.  If nothing else, their fee depends on the “benefit” they provided to Tesla shareholders, and Tesla has already telegraphed that if shareholders vote to ratify, the company plans to argue that the attorneys did not provide any benefit to Tesla shareholders, and therefore the fee should be reduced or eliminated.  So the Tornetta team already has a very strong incentive to argue that the ratification has no effect, and they will not be pleased that an interloper is trying to seize control of the issue.

With respect to the Texas redomestication, the vote’s in a week.  Chancellor McCormick cannot risk the company redomesticates and then she somehow has to reel it all back, which means she either has to decide this issue very quickly, or she has to make sure Tesla won’t move while there are (plausible) arguments outstanding.  That said, the Texas move is not self-executing once the vote occurs; even if shareholders vote in favor, Tesla will still have to file the appropriate forms with the Texas Secretary of State.  So, if Chancellor McCormick believes the complaint has merit, she does not have to block the vote (which is not something Ball has asked for anyway); she can enjoin Tesla (or seek a promise, which she seems to prefer), from filing the forms until the matter is sorted out.

Which brings us to – does the complaint have merit?

Imma stop you right there on the written consent thing.  The two-thirds requirement only applies to actions that are “inconsistent with the purpose and intent of” the original charter provisions, and there is no possibility of getting unanimous written consent in a public company (plus, Elon Musk owns shares; if he’s consenting, the point is moot anyway since he can call a special meeting).  Ball’s not going to succeed on that one.

What about the 50% threshold for calling a special meeting?

I’m going to start by saying I have not actually researched any caselaw on this, which might very well exist, and that obviously supersedes anything I’m about to say, but – I’d still rather be Tesla than Ball.  Fifty percent is still almost impossible to achieve in a public company outside the context of a shareholder meeting; moreso now that Tesla’s shareholder base is in the ballpark of 45% retail, and especially taking into account that Musk himself owns 13% (20% if you count the unexercised options, which number includes the ones in dispute).

So I think the real action here is over the pay ratification.

But I promised a lesson about corporate law, and here it is.

What if this challenge presented more of a threat to redomestication?  What if, for example, Texas set the maximum threshold for shareholders to call a special meeting at 25% – which is the MBCA standard – rather than 50%?

In that event, we can imagine a scenario.  Suppose Elon Musk called up his good buddy Governor Greg Abbott, and told him, “Greg, Tesla would love to reincorporate to Texas, but your law is blocking us!  Can you do something about that?”

How much do you think Texas cares about that maximum vote threshold for shareholders to demand a meeting – especially if, in my hypothetical, Texas just adopted the MBCA as written?

Probably not much.

So we can imagine that, at the next legislative session, a bill sails through the legislature to amend Texas’s corporate code to eliminate the right of shareholders to call special meetings, and voila!  Tesla freely reincorporates.

All of this is a thought experiment for Tesla but it’s a real-world thing that happens with companies all the time.  For example, this paper tells the story of the time that Massachusetts actually changed its corporate law in the middle of an active proxy fight in order to protect the management of a local firm.  And that’s not even unusual.

But, corporations and shareholders assume, it doesn’t happen in Delaware.  Why?  Partly because Delaware cares a lot more about its corporate code, but also because Delaware doesn’t have local firms.  I mean, you know, not really.  So it’s pretty much neutral ground.

At least, that’s what everyone’s always thought.

But right now, there’s a proposal to amend Delaware’s corporate code rather dramatically (prior posts here, here, here, here, and here), and as far as I can tell, that’s largely to protect a group of specific companies that got a bit over their skis with aggressive shareholder agreements when they went public, and now some faction of the Delaware bar is seeking to change the law in order to retroactively validate those arrangements.

So, you know.  We’ll see what happens.

Edit: In the comments, it’s proposed that the complaint fails for a simpler reason regarding the terms of Delaware’s redomestication statute, which overrides specific supermajority charter provisions.  That may be right.  Interestingly, Tesla recommends against shareholder proposals seeking declassification on the ground that they are impossible to implement without a two-thirds majority, but it cagily does not say that it could not implement them in conjunction with redomestication.  ISS reports that when it raised the possibility of declassification in conjunction with the Texas move, Tesla simply stated it preferred to keep the new Texas charter as close in form to the old one as possible and committed to revisiting the issue of declassification when it achieved sufficient shareholder participation at a meeting.

We’ve covered the TripAdvisor litigation here for some time.  With the case before the Delaware Supreme Court, Nevada has weighed in with an amicus brief.  Nevada, on behalf of Francisco Aguilar, Nevada’s Secretary of State, was represented by its Office of the Attorney General,  friend of the BLPB, Anthony Rickey, and DLA Piper’s John Reed.  Ann’s Tweet even makes an appearance.

Nevada argues that Delaware’s Chancery Court should not accept allegations in a complaint about Nevada law instead of analyzing Nevada law itself.  It also argues that the decision risks creating an exit tax on any corporation that seeks to leave Delaware for Nevada–or some other state.  To the extent that any other state arguably offers benefits that wouldn’t be available to a controlling shareholder in Delaware, the same standards would apply.  Thus, a reincorporation to Texas, Florida, or California might even be covered.  Depending on how far you take it, any corporation seeking to redomesticate to any of the many states with constituency statutes might face the same kind of challenge.

The amicus also points out that claims that Nevada has “raced to the bottom” should sound familiar to Delaware because Delaware itself has faced this accusation for many years. And while the TripAdvisor complaint included some comments made in Nevada’s internal legislative debate, the same could happen with Delaware with Delaware Representative Madinah Wilson-Anton‘s statement that any “lover of democracy, transparency, and the rule of law should be grossed out” over process leading to recent proposed amendments in Delaware.

It’s in Nevada’s interest to push back on the notion that Nevada law creates a “liability free” jurisdiction.  One common criticism of Nevada law is that its business judgment statute appears to exculpate for violations of the duty of loyalty.  What often gets missed though is the nuance.  Nevada does not separate loyalty and care for exculpation.  It does not exculpate for fiduciary breaches that include “intentional misconduct, fraud or a knowing violation of law.”  Any knowing betrayal or intentional violation of a duty of loyalty would not be exculpated.  While Delaware may allow liability for unintentional and unknowing violations of law, Nevada does not impose liability for those mistakes.

One thing that often gets glossed over, is that Nevada, like Delaware, has a strong economic incentive to balance investor and management rights in ways that maximize shareholder value.  If investors did not think that Nevada law’s benefits were worth the bargain, they could sell or discount what they pay for Nevada shares.  Indeed, the TripAdvisor decision considered looking at market reactions for potential damages.  If the market ever gave a negative judgment about a state’s corporate law, you could expect firms to flee the jurisdiction or the state to quickly move to correct the problem.

Dear BLPB Readers:

I’m excited to share a Call for Papers from the Journal of Financial Markets Infrastructures, where I am an Associate Editor.  Here is a brief description of the Journal from its website:

“The economic and technological landscape of financial market infrastructures (FMIs) is rapidly evolving and changing how we conduct transactions globally. Efforts to renew and strengthen payment, clearing and settlement systems have been undertaken internationally and the role of new technologies, including digital money, CBDCs, blockchains and smart contracts, is being continuously reassessed.

The Journal of Financial Market Infrastructures was the first journal to specialize in publishing peer-reviewed research in FMIs. Today, over a decade after its first publication, the journal continues to offer its readers a selection of the best ideas, developments and analysis in this dynamic and exciting sector of the economy.”

The call for papers is here: Download JFMI Call for Papers

At Emory Law’s Eighth Biennial Conference on the Teaching of Transactional Skills back in the fall of 2023, I had the privilege of presenting with my UT Law clinical teaching colleague, Brian Krumm.  (Congratulations are due to Brian, who was recently appointed the Interim Director of our Clayton Center for Entrepreneurial Law!)  The title of this post is also the title of our presentation.  An edited transcript of the presentation was recently published by Transactions: The Tennessee Journal of Business Law and can be found here. The abstract is as follows:

In this edited transcript, we explain how each of us–a doctrinal law professor and a clinician–use members of our campus and local communities to help instruct transactional business law students. We each have independently realized that there is a value to sharing these outside business and legal experts with our students. Among other things, we have found that we can bring unique areas of legal and business expertise into our teaching and, at the same time, introduce our students to real-life practice experiences and related simulations. All of this is foundational to law practice. In addition, experiences of this kind are, in our view, increasingly useful and important as we look toward preparing students for the concepts, principles, and skills that will be tested on the NextGen Bar.

Please contact me or Brian if you have questions about the teaching we describe in this transcript.  We are happy to provide more information and relevant teaching materials.  Jyst ask.

A collection of the presentations from the Emory Law conference is available here.