The Venture Alley - A blog about business and legal issues important to entrepreneurs, startups, venture capitalists and angel investors.

CONTRIBUTED BYTrent Dykestrent.dykes@dlapiper.com On February 22, 2013, in its Meso Scale Diagnostics, LLC v. Roche Diagnostics GMBH decision, the Delaware Court of Chancery held that a reverse triangular merger is not an assignment by operation of law, meaning that licensor consent is not required for the surviving entity to retain the target company’s rights, benefits and obligations under an existing technology license. For background, in a prior post, we discussed the impact of common M&A structures, as well as the impact of common anti-assignment provisions, on the assignability of contracts of the target company (in other words, whether or not the... More

Last week, the Delaware Court of Chancery issued an interesting opinion where it enjoined a party from prosecuting a proxy contest and proceeding with a hostile bid for its industry competitor as a remedy for breach of the parties’ NDA. This pretty extreme remedy was issued even though the parties did not enter into a standstill agreement. Courtesy of John Reed, a partner in DLA Piper’s Delaware office, below is a brief summary of the case and a few questions raised by this recent decision. The full text of the case is available here: Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. v. Vulcan Materials Co.,... More

The Delaware Court of Chancery recently awarded $1.2 billiion in a matter alleging breach of the duty of loyalty by a controlling stockholder in a merger.  In a recent publication, our colleagues Robert W. Brownlie, John Reed, Courtney Stewart, and Jennifer A. Lloyd, describe the case and suggest approaches to keep in mind in similar circumstances as follows: The Delaware Court of Chancery, in the recent decision In re Southern Peru Copper Corp. Shareholder Derivative Litigation, 30 A.3d 60, (Del. Ch. 2011), has awarded US$1.2 billion in damages (plus interest from the merger date to judgment and payment) after finding the controlling stockholder... More