Assume the following:
- The board of directors is approached by a private equity fund-backed management buyout group.
- The board approves the transaction but, in doing so, was grossly negligent in failing to inform themselves of all information reasonably available to them.
- The board then puts the proposal to a vote of the shareholders. The shareholder vote is uncoerced. The proposal is approved by a substantial majority of the disinterested shareholders.
- But the proxy statement did not disclose that the directors had been grossly negligent in failing to inform themselves of all information reasonably available to them.
- Has the shareholder vote satisfied Corwin?
- See Stroud v. Grace, 606 A.2d 75, 84 n.1 (Del. 1992) ("We recognize the long-standing principle that to comport with its fiduciary duty to disclose all relevant material facts, a board is not required to engage in “self-flagellation” and draw legal conclusions implicating itself in a breach of fiduciary duty from surrounding facts and circumstances prior to a formal adjudication of the matter. Nonetheless, when a board allegedly breaches its fiduciary duties, we will not uphold shareholder ratification unless the board discloses all material facts relevant to the issue at hand.").
Assuming Corwin applies, is there any room left for rebutting the business judgment rule by showing that the directors failed to satisfy the informed decision requirement laid out by Van Gorkom? Or is that requirement a dead letter?
On the basis of Leo Strine's decision in Singh v. Attenborough, 137 A.3d 151 (Del. 2016), I think the answer to the former is no:
We affirm the judgment of the Court of Chancery solely on the basis of its decision on reargument of October 29, 2015, finding that a fully informed, uncoerced vote of the disinterested stockholders invoked the business judgment rule standard of review. But, we note that the reargument opinion's decision to consider post-closing whether the plaintiffs stated a claim for the breach of the duty of care after invoking the business judgment rule was erroneous. Absent a stockholder vote and absent an exculpatory charter provision, the damages liability standard for an independent director or other disinterested fiduciary for breach of the duty of care is gross negligence, even if the transaction was a change-of-control transaction.Therefore, employing this same standard after an informed, uncoerced vote of the disinterested stockholders would give no standard-of-review-shifting effect to the vote. When the business judgment rule standard of review is invoked because of a vote, dismissal is typically the result. That is because the vestigial waste exception has long had little real-world relevance, because it has been understood that stockholders would be unlikely to approve a transaction that is wasteful.
On the other hand, I take it that Robert Miller disagrees:
Even after Corwin, in the absence of a Section 102(b)(7) provision in the corporate charter, a plaintiff-stockholder may argue post-closing that the stockholder vote was not fully informed, and if the plaintiff succeeds on this score, the directors would be liable in monetary damages for any breaches of their duty of care, including under Revlon. In the presence of a Section 102(b)(7) provision, the plaintiff-stockholder has to argue that any material misstatement or omission in the disclosure resulted from a breach of the board's duty of loyalty--a claim that, in a third-party transaction in which the directors were not otherwise interested--is very unlikely to succeed. See Larkin v. Shah, C.A. No. 10918-VCS, 2016 WL 4485447, at *20 (Del. Ch. Aug. 25, 2016). The upshot is that, even after Corwin, Section 102(b)(7) remains very important in insulating directors from post-closing actions for damages in merger cases.
Robert T. Miller, Smith v. Van Gorkom and the Kobayashi Maru: The Place of the Trans Union Case in the Development of Delaware Corporate Law, 9 Wm. & Mary Bus. L. Rev. 65, 219 n.676 (2017). But note that his article pre-dated Singh.
I welcome comments, but prefer not to get speculation. Cites preferred.
Update: We got a great response from Robert Miller. Here.