Del. Chancery WeWork Management Access to Information

Wednesday, September 9, 2020

In In re WeWork Litigation, 2020 Del. Ch. LEXIS 270 (Del. Ch. Aug. 21, 2020) (Bouchard, C.), the Delaware Court docket of Chancery thought-about a difficulty of first impression: Does the administration of a Delaware company have the unilateral authority to preclude a director from acquiring the company’s privileged data? The Court docket held it can not. The administrators of Delaware companies are entitled to share in authorized recommendation the company receives and, topic to restricted exceptions not at subject in WeWork, can’t be prevented from accessing the company’s privileged data.

In 2019, the board of The We Firm (“WeWork” or the “Firm”) fashioned a two-person Particular Committee which entered right into a Grasp Transaction Settlement, whereby the Firm would tender shares to SoftBank Group Corp. and SoftBank Imaginative and prescient Fund (AIV M1) L.P. (collectively, “SoftBank”) in alternate for $three billion in funding. When the board fashioned the Particular Committee, it particularly decided that the administrators on the committee had been “freed from any materials battle of curiosity regarding a Potential Transaction, SoftBank and [WeWork founder] Adam Neumann.” The tender provide was scheduled to shut on April 1, 2020, however SoftBank terminated settlement, asserting that sure closing situations had not been glad.

On April 7, 2020, the Particular Committee filed an motion on behalf of WeWork in opposition to SoftBank alleging that it (i) breached its obligations to make use of its affordable finest efforts to consummate the transactions contemplated within the Grasp Transaction Settlement and (ii) breached its fiduciary duties because the controlling stockholder by failing to consummate the transaction. On April 17, 2020, SoftBank moved to dismiss the Criticism and despatched a letter to the board asserting that the Particular Committee needs to be prohibited from persevering with the litigation as a result of its members had been allegedly conflicted. The Particular Committee rejected these claims in its personal letter to the board.

On the time the competing letters had been despatched, the board consisted of eight administrators, together with 4 SoftBank designees and the 2 Particular Committee members. By a vote of 6-2 (with the Particular Committee members voting in opposition to), the board licensed administration to have interaction an government search agency to establish two candidates for appointment to the board on a short lived foundation (the “New Committee”) to handle the right scope of the Particular Committee’s authority to direct WeWork’s litigation in opposition to SoftBank. The Particular Committee requested data concerning the steps taken to establish these new administrators and administration’s discussions regarding this course of, together with dialogue between administration, on the one hand, and the Firm’s inside counsel and outdoors counsel (Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP (“Skadden”)).

Regardless of opposition by the Particular Committee, the board in the end fashioned the New Committee, which employed separate counsel and produced a report concluding that the Particular Committee didn’t have authority to provoke the litigation in opposition to SoftBank. The Firm adopted the advice of the New Committee and filed a movement to dismiss its criticism. Administration joined this movement and in addition requested dismissal of the lawsuit.

The Particular Committee sought discovery to oppose the movement to dismiss asking for, amongst different issues, administration’s communications with Skadden and inside counsel concerning the choice to type the New Committee. Administration opposed the invention claiming that: (i) the Particular Committee was opposed to the Firm; (ii) the Particular Committee couldn’t fairly anticipate to obtain recommendation from Firm counsel regarding the New Committee; and (iii) administration had an affordable expectation of confidence vis-à-vis the Particular Committee to which it was opposed. In response, the Particular Committee argued that it was entitled to the requested data as a result of the board, not administration, is liable for overseeing the affairs of the company. The Particular Committee additionally claimed it was not opposed to the Firm.

The Court docket of Chancery dominated in favor of the Particular Committee. As a threshold matter, the final rule is that “a director’s proper to data is basically unfettered in nature. . . . [A] company can not assert the privilege to disclaim a director entry to authorized recommendation furnished to the board in the course of the director’s tenure.” The acknowledged exceptions to the final rule are the place (i) the events conform to restrict a director’s proper to data ex ante; (ii) the board appoints a particular committee and the communications are between that committee and its counsel; or (iii) a board or particular committee determines that there’s adequate adversity between the excluded director and the company. Solely exception (iii) was at-issue. The Court docket, nevertheless, held that administration failed to determine that exception (iii) utilized.

As an preliminary matter, the board made no choice concerning whether or not to withhold the Firm’s privileged data; relatively, the choice was made by administration unilaterally. Though administration argued that the preservation of the privilege was justified as a result of each director was allegedly conflicted, the Court docket held that administration didn’t have the discretion to make this willpower. The administrators, and never administration, are liable for the right administration of the company and have a proper to be handled as “a joint shopper when authorized recommendation is rendered to the company by way of considered one of its administrators or officers.” Furthermore, the board couldn’t vote to ratify the exclusion of the Particular Committee from the disputed communications as a result of six (out of the eight) administrators had been tied to SoftBank and, thus, conflicted.

Underneath fundamental rules of Delaware regulation, the administrators of a Delaware company are presumptively entitled to acquire the company’s privileged data as a joint shopper of the company, and any curtailment of that proper can’t be imposed unilaterally by company administration untethered from the oversight and supreme authority of the company’s board of administrators. Consequently, the Particular Committee was entitled to the communications between administration and counsel ensuing within the creation of the New Committee. Nevertheless, the Particular Committee’s rights didn’t prolong to the New Committee’s discussions with its separate counsel.

The WeWork choice serves to spotlight the fraught nature of company lawyer/shopper communications the place a board has competing factions of administrators. Absent ex ante motion by an unbiased board to protect sure lawyer/shopper communications of administration from an opposing faction of the board, administration can not unilaterally withhold these communications from any board members. A method company counsel and administration could withhold putatively privileged communications from an opposing faction of the board is by having the board type a particular committee previous to any communications between administration and counsel. As long as administration’s communications with counsel fall throughout the purview of the particular committee, it will appear that Delaware regulation would protect these communications for discovery by board members exterior the committee.