Justia Corporate Compliance Opinion Summaries

This appeal stemmed from dispute in the Court of Chancery over the membership of the board of directors of Biolase, Inc. The Court of Chancery resolved the dispute by finding that the Biolase board of directors consisted of five directors, including Paul Clark. The Court of Chancery concluded that Clark was appointed to the Biolase board after a previous director, Alexander Arrow, resigned through oral statements at a board meeting. A press release issued by Biolase after the board meeting quoted Federico Pignatelli, Biolase's Chief Executive Officer and Chairman, as saying he was "thrilled" with Clark's appointment to the board. But Pignatelli quickly reversed course when he learned that Clark had aligned himself with a faction of the board that wanted to remove Pignatelli from his position as CEO. Pignatelli argued that because Arrow's resignation at the board meeting was given orally and was not reduced to writing before Clark was appointed to fill the vacancy created by Arrow's resignation, Clark had not been properly appointed to the board under 8 Del. C. section 141(b). Biolase's largest stockholder, appellee Oracle Partners, L.P., brought suit Biolase seeking a declaration that, among other things, Arrow had resigned from the Biolase board and been replaced by Clark at the board meeting. The Court of Chancery rejected the Pignatelli Faction's legal argument and held that section 141(b) was a permissive statute, that a director may resign by an oral statement, and that there was no requirement that a resignation be in writing. Because the Court of Chancery's holding that directors are permitted under section 141(b) to resign by oral statements was not legally erroneous and the Court of Chancery's determination that Arrow resigned at the board meeting was supported by substantial evidence, the Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Chancery's ruling that Clark was properly appointed to the Biolase board of directors. View "Biolase, Inc. v. Oracle Partners, L.P." on Justia Law

StreetEasy filed suit under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act, 15 U.S.C. 1125(d). This appeal arose out of the attempted resolution of a dispute between a real estate listing website and one of its co-founders over the propriety of actions taken by the co-founder when he separated from the company, and the validity of corporate actions that occurred before his departure. Because the order of dismissal failed to retain jurisdiction over enforcement of the parties' settlement agreement, or to incorporate the terms of that agreement, the district court lacked jurisdiction to enforce the agreement. Therefore, the court vacated the district court's orders enforcing the settlement agreement and holding defendant in contempt for noncompliance. Because defendant was properly sanctioned for only one of the three factual contentions identified by the district court as the basis for its sanctions award, the court vacated that award and remanded the matter for reconsideration of the appropriate amount of monetary sanctions in light of this decision. View "StreetEasy, Inc. v. Chertok" on Justia Law

This case is one of many "clawback" actions initiated by the Receiver to recover profits from investors in a Ponzi scheme run by Arthur Nadel. The Lee Defendants appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the Receiver on the Receiver's complaint under Florida Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act (FUFTA), Fla. Stat. 726.101 et seq. The receiver appealed the denial of prejudgment interest on the profits Lee was ordered to return to the receivership entities. Since the undisputed facts show that Nadel's transfers to the Lee Defendants satisfy all the elements of FUFTA, the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the Receiver is due to be affirmed as is the judgment for the Receiver and against the Lee Defendants in the amount of $935,631.51. The court reversed and remanded with instructions for the district court to apply the factors in Blasland, Bouck & Lee, Inc. v. City of N. Miami, to determine whether equitable considerations justify denying or reducing a prejudgment interest award in light of Florida's general rule that prejudgment interest is an element of pecuniary damages. View "Wiand v. Lee, et al." on Justia Law

Between 2008 and 2011, Viacom Inc. paid three senior executives more than $100 million in bonus or incentive compensation. Compensation exceeding $1 million paid by a corporation to senior executives is not normally deductible under federal tax law, but a corporate taxpayer may deduct an executive’s otherwise nondeductible compensation over $1 million if an independent committee its board of directors approves the compensation on the basis of objective performance standards and the compensation is “approved by a majority of the vote in a separate shareholder vote” before being paid. In 2007, a majority of Viacom’s voting shareholders approved such a plan. Shareholder Freedman sued, claiming that Viacom’s Board failed to comply with the terms of the Plan and that, instead of using quantitative performance measures, the Board partially based its awards on qualitative, subjective factors, destroying the basis for their tax deductibility. Freedman claimed that this caused the Board to award executives more than $36 million of excess compensation. The plan was reauthorized in 2012. The district court dismissed. The Third Circuit affirmed. With respect to his derivative claim, Freedman did not make a pre-suit demand to the Board or present sufficient allegations explaining why a demand would have been futile. With respect to his direct claim regarding participation by stockholders without voting rights, federal law does not confer voting rights on shareholders not otherwise authorized to vote or affect Delaware law permit ting corporations to issue shares without voting rights. View "Freedman v. Redstone" on Justia Law

Arnold, a former officer of two corporate defendants, held significant stock in each. In 1999, Arnold sued both in Illinois state court, claiming shareholder oppression. In 2006, the parties allegedly agreed to settle, but never executed settlement documents. The defendants have not paid any of the $207,500 purportedly required. The court dismissed without deciding whether the case had been settled. A month later, Arnold agreed to sell his stock to KJD for $290,000. KJD advanced $100,000; Arnold represented that he had good title. KJD notified the defendants that it had purchased the stock and wished to inspect the corporate books. They did not respond, but moved to vacate the dismissal, alleging that, under the alleged settlement, Arnold had transferred his stock to the corporations. They also filed suit before a different judge, resulting in a default judgment ordering Arnold to execute settlement papers and comply with the agreement. The Appellate Court affirmed. KJD was never joined as a party. The court stayed proceedings in the original action. Arnold filed a FRCP Rule 22 interpleader action, naming the corporations and KJD, stating that he made no claim to continued ownership and was willing to transfer the stock to whichever defendant the court determined to have superior right. Invoking the Rooker-Feldman doctrine, the district court dismissed, but ordered Arnold to return the $100,000 advance payment. The Seventh Circuit vacated and remanded, reasoning that the interpleader action does not attack the state court judgment itself, so further proceedings are necessary.View "Arnold v. KJD Real Estate, LLC" on Justia Law

Brothers Patrick and Thomas each owned one‐third of the stock of Commercial Light, a Chicago electrical contractor. Between 1982 and the 2008 sale of the company, Thomas was the CEO, board chairman, and president. The other officers were the company’s treasurer, and its executive vice‐president. The board of directors had only two members: Thomas and a lawyer. Patrick took no part in the company’s management. Patrick sued, claiming that when Morris became executive vice‐president in 1992, he, with Thomas’s approval, started jacking up the salaries and bonuses paid so that the compensation of the three officers soared, totaling $22 million between 1993 and 2000, and that the lawyer on the board rubber‐stamped Thomas’s compensation decisions. The Seventh Circuit affirmed a jury verdict finding breach of fiduciary duty. The jury did not have to find that the compensation was excessive in order to find a breach of fiduciary duty by concealment. Illinois allows as a remedy for breach of fiduciary duty a forfeiture of all the fiduciary’s earnings during the period of breach. The court speculated on why the highly-educated Patrick did not discover the concealment until several years after the sale, but noted that the appeal only concerned jury instructions. View "Halperin v. Halperin" on Justia Law

Robert Rude and Harold Rudolph were shareholders and former directors of Cook Inlet Region, Inc. (CIRI). They distributed a joint proxy solicitation in an attempt to be elected to the CIRI board of directors at CIRI’s 2010 annual meeting. Rude and Rudolph accumulated over one quarter of the total outstanding votes, but CIRI’s Inspector of Election refused to allow them to cumulate their votes. Thus, votes were split evenly between the two of them and neither was seated. Upon review of the matter, the Supreme Court concluded that the language of the proxy form required the shareholders’ votes to be equally distributed between Rude and Rudolph unless a shareholder indicated otherwise. Therefore the Court affirmed the superior court’s decision granting summary judgment in favor of CIRI on this issue. View "Rude v. Cook Inlet Region, Inc." on Justia Law

The issue before the Supreme Court in this matter centered on a Court of Chancery decision arising from a 2011 acquisition by MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings, Inc. (M&F), a 43% stockholder in M&F Worldwide Corp (MFW), of the remaining common stock of MFW. M&F’s proposal to take MFW private was made contingent upon two procedural conditions. Appellants initially sought to enjoin the transaction. They withdrew their request for injunctive relief after taking expedited discovery, including several depositions. Appellants then sought post-closing relief against M&F, Ronald Perelman, and MFW’s directors for breach of fiduciary duty. Defendants then moved for summary judgment, which the Court of Chancery granted. Appellants raised two arguments on appeal: (1) the Court of Chancery erred in concluding that no material disputed facts existed regarding the conditions precedent to business judgment review; and (2) the Court of Chancery erred, as a matter of law, in holding that the business judgment standard applied to controller freeze-out mergers where the controller’s proposal is conditioned on both Special Committee approval and a favorable majority-of-the-minority vote.The Supreme Court concluded Defendants’ motion for summary judgment was properly granted on all of those issues. The Court determined that the business judgment rule standard of review applied to this controlling stockholder buyout. View "Kahn, et al v. M&F Worldwide Corp., et al." on Justia Law

Plaintiff-appellant Eldon Klaassen appealed a Court of Chancery judgment which held that Klaassen was not the de jure chief executive officer of Allegro Development Corporation. Klaassen claimed that the remaining Allegro directors, by removing him as CEO, violated an equitable notice requirement and also improperly employed deceptive tactics. After a trial and without addressing its merits, the Court of Chancery held that the claim was barred under laches and acquiescence. Upon review of the matter, the Supreme Court affirmed the Court of Chancery: to the extent that Klaassen’s claim was cognizable, it was equitable in nature. Furthermore, the Court concluded that the Court of Chancery properly found that Klaassen acquiesced in his removal as CEO, and was therefore barred from challenging removal. View "Klaassen v. Allegro Development Corporation, et al." on Justia Law

Petitioner filed a complaint with OSHA, asserting that Saybolt and Core Labs had violated Section 806 of the Corporate and Criminal Fraud Accountability Act of 2002, Title VIII of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, 18 U.S.C. 1514A(a), by retaliating against him for blowing the whistle on an alleged scheme to violate Colombian tax law. OSHA, an ALJ, and the Board all rejected petitioner's complaint. The court concluded that petitioner did not demonstrate that he engaged in protected conduct because he did not complain, based on a reasonable belief, that one of six enumerated categories of U.S. law had been violated. Petitioner had not demonstrated that he engaged in any protected activity, and given this, the court could not say that Core Labs knew that petitioner engaged in a protected activity that was a contributing factor in the unfavorable actions of withholding petitioner's pay raise and ultimately terminating him. Accordingly, the court affirmed the Board's dismissal of petitioner's complaint because he had not demonstrated that his claim fell within the scope of section 806. View "Villanueva v. U.S. Dept. of Labor" on Justia Law