Topic: Corporate Governance

On December 20, 2011, Vice Chancellor Parsons of the Delaware Court of Chancery issued an opinion and entered a temporary restraining order enjoining ChinaCast Education Corporation from holding its annual meeting, scheduled for later that day, until January 10, 2012.  See Sherwood, et al. v. Chan Tze Ngon, et al., No. 7106-VCP (Delaware Court of Chancery).  The Court found that ChinaCast’s actions, having removed incumbent director Ned Sherwood[1] from its slate of nominees less than two weeks before the scheduled annual meeting, did not "comport with the ‘scrupulous fairness’ required of corporate elections."  The opinion serves as an important reminder for companies that while Delaware law provides significant latitude to create processes intended to facilitate the orderly conduct of annual stockholder meetings and election contests, actions that improperly infringe upon the shareholder franchise will be viewed skeptically by Delaware courts.

New York partner Rashida La Lande is the author of "Deals With Controlling Stockholders: 5 Tips for Boards" [PDF] published on November 2, 2011 on Boardmember.com.

On October 9, 2011, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law competing bills that create two new corporate forms in California — a "flexible purpose corporation" and a "benefit corporation" — intended to allow entrepreneurs and investors the choice of organizing companies that can pursue both economic and social objectives.  The new corporate forms differ from traditional for-profit corporations that are organized to pursue profit (and not social purposes) and non-profit corporations that must be used solely to promote social benefits.  These laws will take effect on January 1, 2012.

On October 14, 2011, Chancellor Strine of the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware issued a decision in In re Southern Peru Copper Corp. Shareholder Derivative Litig., C.A. No. 961-CS.  In the 105-page decision, Chancellor Strine ultimately found that the controlling stockholder defendants had breached their fiduciary duty of loyalty and awarded damages of over $1.2 billion, which may be paid by the controlling stockholder by returning some of the stock consideration received from the controlled company in the transaction.  The decision provides important guidance for companies engaging in M&A transactions with their controlling stockholders. 

On September 1, 2011, the Governor of California signed into law California Assembly Bill No. 571 (“AB 571”), which will liberalize and streamline the legal standards for California corporations and quasi-California corporations to make cash and property distributions to shareholders, including dividends and share repurchases and redemptions. AB 571 amends portions of the California Corporations Code (the “Code”) limiting corporate distributions that have been in effect since 1977, which many lawyers and clients have found confusing and overly restrictive. The new law will make California’s restrictions on shareholder distributions more consistent with analogous restrictions applicable to California limited liability companies and limited partnerships and the corporate laws of most other states. With AB 571, boards of directors of corporations will be free to consider the fair market value of a corporation’s assets, instead of historical carrying cost, and rely on whatever financial information a board deems reasonable under the circumstances, when determining whether the corporation has sufficient assets relative to its liabilities to distribute cash or property to its shareholders. This change alone will make it significantly easier for financially healthy corporations with historical book losses and appreciated assets (as is common with many growth companies) to pay dividends or redeem or repurchase shares.