Allegations of Wrongdoing Insufficient to Support Shareholders Derivative Action Pursuant to BCL 626 (c)

The Second Department determined plaintiffs failed to make allegations sufficient to support a shareholders derivative action pursuant to Business Corporation Law 626(c):

Pursuant to Business Corporation Law § 626(c), in order to assert a derivative cause of action, in their complaint, shareholders must “set forth with particularity [their] efforts . . . to secure the initiation of such action by the board or the reasons for not making such effort” … . Here, because the plaintiffs conceded that they made no demand upon the board, they were required to plead facts demonstrating that a demand would have been futile.

“Demand is futile, and excused, when the directors are incapable of making an impartial decision as to whether to bring suit” … . A plaintiff may satisfy this standard by alleging with particularity (1) “that a majority of the board of directors is interested in the challenged transaction,” which may be based on self-interest in the transaction or a loss of independence because a director with no direct interest in the transaction is “controlled” by a self-interested director, (2) “that the board of directors did not fully inform themselves about the challenged transaction to the extent reasonably appropriate under the circumstances,” or (3) “that the challenged transaction was so egregious on its face that it could not have been the product of sound business judgment of the directors” … . However, “[t]o justify failure to make a demand, it is not sufficient to name a majority of the directors as defendants with conclusory allegations of wrongdoing or control by wrongdoers” … .

Although the plaintiffs’ proposed amended complaint alleges that the individual defendants had a personal interest in the challenged transactions, it fails to describe the challenged transactions or to explain how any but one of the corporation’s four directors would have profited from them. These “conclusory allegations of wrongdoing or control by wrongdoers” are insufficient … . Instead, to adequately plead self-interest, the complaint must set forth facts alleging that the directors “receive[d] a direct financial benefit from the transaction which is different from the benefit to shareholders generally” … . The plaintiffs have failed to satisfy this standard. Similarly, the plaintiffs’ allegations that the corporation’s directors made “lavish and unnecessary expenditures” and paid themselves “unwarranted salaries” are insufficient because they fail to “allege compensation rates excessive on their face or other facts which call into question whether the compensation was fair to the corporation when approved, the good faith of the directors setting those rates, or that the decision to set the compensation could not have been a product of valid business judgment” … . Because the proposed amended complaint fails to adequately describe the challenged transactions or allege in what manner they were inappropriate, it also fails to “allege[ ] with particularity that the board of directors did not fully inform themselves about the challenged transaction[s] to the extent reasonably appropriate under the circumstances” or that “the challenged transaction[s were] so egregious on [their] face that [they] could not have been the product of sound business judgment” … . Accordingly, the plaintiffs’ allegations, incorporating the proposed amendments, remained palpably insufficient, and the Supreme Court erred in determining that the plaintiffs had satisfied the standard for leave to amend a pleading … . Walsh v Wwebnet inc, 2014 NY Slip Op 02575, 2nd Dept 4-16-14