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ALTHOUGH THE COMPLAINT BY SHAREHOLDERS AGAINST DIRECTORS DID NOT SUFFICIENTLY ALLEGE THE BREACH OF A FIDUCIARY DUTY, IT DID ALLEGE A BREACH OF THE SUFFICIENT INFORMATION DUTY (FIRST DEPT).

The First Department, modifying Supreme Court, determined that, although it did not sufficiently allege the breach of a fiduciary duty, the complaint by shareholders alleged the breach of the “sufficient information duty” owed to shareholders by the directors:

The complaint … fails to allege “a special factual relationship between the directors and the shareholders … bring[ing] the directors of the company into direct and close contact with the shareholders in a manner capable of generating fiduciary obligations” with regard to either the dividend policy that is the subject of the third cause of action or the merger transaction that is the subject of the fourth cause of action … .

However, to the extent the director defendants gave shareholders an information statement providing information and recommendations about the merger transaction, they owed the shareholders a “sufficient information duty” … . This is not a duty of loyalty, which would require the directors to subordinate their interests to the shareholders’ interests, but “if [the directors] are going to invite the shareholders to a meeting, common fairness requires that they explain what the purpose of the meeting is” in a “clear and comprehensible” manner … .

The complaint alleges that the information statement failed to disclose that two directors on the special committee negotiating merger terms had ties to the investor defendants, who proposed the merger, that it failed to disclose any details about the search for alternate proposals, which was illusory, that it failed to provide a meaningful valuation of ordinary shares using industry standards for the insurance business, and that it failed to disclose the impact on the stock value of a parallel bond transaction. Moreover, the complaint alleges that, while the information statement warned that the investor defendants could wipe out the ordinary shareholders by redeeming their convertible cumulative preferred participating shares, it misrepresented the likelihood of that occurrence. Davis v Scottish Re Group Ltd., 2018 NY Slip Op 01867, First Dept 3-20-18

CORPORATION LAW (ALTHOUGH THE COMPLAINT BY SHAREHOLDERS AGAINST DIRECTORS DID NOT SUFFICIENTLY ALLEGE THE BREACH OF A FIDUCIARY DUTY, IT DID ALLEGE A BREACH OF THE SUFFICIENT INFORMATION DUTY (FIRST DEPT))/SHAREHOLDERS (CORPORATION LAW, ALTHOUGH THE COMPLAINT BY SHAREHOLDERS AGAINST DIRECTORS DID NOT SUFFICIENTLY ALLEGE THE BREACH OF A FIDUCIARY DUTY, IT DID ALLEGE A BREACH OF THE SUFFICIENT INFORMATION DUTY (FIRST DEPT))/DIRECTORS (CORPORATION LAW, ALTHOUGH THE COMPLAINT BY SHAREHOLDERS AGAINST DIRECTORS DID NOT SUFFICIENTLY ALLEGE THE BREACH OF A FIDUCIARY DUTY, IT DID ALLEGE A BREACH OF THE SUFFICIENT INFORMATION DUTY (FIRST DEPT))/SUFFICIENT INFORMATION DUTY (CORPORATION LAW, ALTHOUGH THE COMPLAINT BY SHAREHOLDERS AGAINST DIRECTORS DID NOT SUFFICIENTLY ALLEGE THE BREACH OF A FIDUCIARY DUTY, IT DID ALLEGE A BREACH OF THE SUFFICIENT INFORMATION DUTY (FIRST DEPT))

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