Court of Chancery Rejects Summary Judgment As To Loyalty Claims Against VC Investors

Today the Court of Chancery released a memorandum opinion (available here) rejecting much of defendants’ summary judgment motion in a case brought by a unitholder in a Delaware LLC against two venture capital firms and/or their affiliates that had collectively acquired control of the LLC.  By way of disclosure, this firm represents plaintiffs in the litigation.

Plaintiff is a unitholder and former CEO of Adhezion Biomedical LLC, who challenged a series of issuances of preferred units and other rights to defendants including two venture capital firms/affiliates of those firms, Originate Ventures, LLC and Liberty Advisors, Inc.  Plaintiff claimed that the issuances breached defendants’ duties of care and loyalty and obligation of good faith, and violated provisions in the LLC Agreement requiring a class vote by common unitholders.  The Court granted summary judgment as to the duty of care and obligation of good faith claims, but denied it as to plaintiffs’ claims for breach of the duty of loyalty and based upon the class vote requirement.

Noteworthy sections of the Court’s ruling included the following:

• The Court found a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the two VC firms and their affiliates should be treated as a group for purposes of imposing controlling stockholder duties upon them.  The two VC firms and their affiliates collectively owned more than 66% of the voting units, controlled two of five directors, and had parallel economic interests, and plaintiff identified multiple communications supporting an inference that they exerted actual control of capital raising activities.
• The Court rejected defendants’ argument that director approval immunized the transactions based upon a provision in the LLC Agreement similar, but not identical, to Section 144 of the Delaware General Corporation Law.  In addition to noting other material factual disputes, the Court ruled that, as a matter of law, in any event it would not operate as a safe harbor against review of the challenged transactions for breach of the duty of loyalty under the entire fairness standard of review.

Advertisement

Filed under: Controlling Stockholder, Court of Chancery, Derivative Actions, Fiduciary Duties