Delaware Business Litigation Report

Chancery Finds Company Exceeds Authority Under Advance Notice Bylaw

Saba Capital Master Fund, Ltd. v. Blackrock Credit Allocation Income Trust, C.A. No. 2019-0416-MTZ (Del. Ch. June 27, 2019).

Delaware courts construe advance notice by-laws against the drafter in favor of stockholder electoral rights. In this case, the defendants had advance notice by-laws that permitted the company to request additional information for certain purposes after receiving notice of a dissident slate of directors, and required a response within 5 days. Pursuant to that by-law, defendants had sent a questionnaire with over 90 questions to the dissident slate. When the dissidents did not supply the requested information within 5 days, defendants advised that their failure to comply resulted in their nominations being defective. The stockholder supporting the dissident slate sued and asked the Court of Chancery to find the nominations complied with the advance notice by-law and to require that the dissidents be freely presented and votes for them counted. Construing the by-law at issue, the Court held that the plaintiff had established that a portion of questions asked exceeded the permissible scope of information requests under the by-laws. Thus, the failure to answer them was not a basis for finding the nominations invalid. The Court therefore ordered that the nominations be presented and that defendants count votes cast for the dissident slate.

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