4-minute read

• Delaware has historically been a popular state for corporations to incorporate due to its clear and consistent corporate laws.
• Recent court decisions in Delaware have expanded the definition of key legal concepts, creating uncertainty for businesses.
• Proposed amendments to Delaware’s General Corporation Law aim to provide clearer definitions and procedures for corporations.
• The authors, involved in drafting the amendments, argue they are intended to restore confidence in Delaware’s corporate law system and benefit both investors and corporations.
• The goal is to create a more predictable and balanced legal environment for businesses operating in Delaware.

The best umpires in baseball are those you don’t notice. The same could be said of the game of business. In that arena, the state of Delaware has acted as the nation’s umpire for 125 years, providing a playing field of corporate laws so clearly marked, consistent and fair that businesses can focus on performing for the benefit of their shareholders, their customers and our country. These very features have allowed Delaware to go unnoticed, while they led eight out of 10 newly public companies and more than two thirds of the Fortune 500 to choose to incorporate here.

But suddenly, Delaware is attracting attention. This week, lawmakers proposed changes to our General Corporation Law, placing the business world’s focus squarely on the umpires. In response, as predictably as fans aggrieved by a call, some commentators have questioned the motivation behind the bill. They intimate that it wrongly serves the interests of specific political agendas, companies or individuals. Most often they point fingers toward Elon Musk, whose pay package was famously invalidated in a Delaware court. 

We can say this, as individuals who responded to the call from Delaware’s governor and legislative leadership for assistance drafting the proposed amendments that represent an attempt to reestablish long-accepted rules once familiar to the Delaware courts and are nothing less than a sincere effort by public officials to protect the interests of their constituents.

Two aspects of the legislative process have drawn particular attention: the participation of private citizens in drafting the bill, and the speed with which it was introduced. These are reasons for praise, not suspicion. Delaware Gov. Matt Meyer and bi-partisan lawmakers sought our help crafting legislation to restore confidence in Delaware as a trusted venue for incorporation. They turned primarily to us and Leo Strine, Jr. — a former chief justice of the Delaware Supreme Court — for our understanding of the nuances of Delaware law. They certainly did not seek us out for the cohesiveness of our political views (we include one Republican, two Democrats, and a former president of the ACLU in Delaware), nor our loyalty to Musk. Although we have different political perspectives on many things, we have a long, shared commitment to the integrity of Delaware corporate law.

The swiftness with which the state Senate introduced the bill is also laudable. Meyer, to his credit, responded within weeks of being in office to the growing crisis. Multiple companies, including Meta, had begun to consider alternatives to Delaware as their state of incorporation. We understand other companies are also considering whether to vote on the question at their upcoming annual meetings, with proxy season beginning next month for many public companies. The time to address concerns about Delaware’s continued value as a venue for incorporation is before play starts, not after the game has begun.

The proposed amendments answer those concerns, and their substance confirms that they were not drafted to serve any one company or individual. They respond to a trend in Delaware court decisions that has evolved rapidly in recent years, where changes to judge-made law have made it easier for shareholders to challenge company actions in court, often by expanding critical concepts beyond earlier boundaries. Take, for instance, the conflicts of interest among board members that trigger powerful shareholder derivative lawsuits. Previously, courts found such conflicts only when board members had a financial stake in a disputed transaction or material entanglements with someone who did; now they perceive conflicts over mere social ties between individuals, using a standard so loose that it becomes relevant whether one director was a guest at another’s family wedding or in pictures on social media.

Similarly, courts had long given heightened scrutiny to transactions between companies and their “controlling shareholders.” But that term has expanded from its natural meaning — someone who owns half or nearly half of a company’s stock — to include “superstar CEOs” who supposedly control investors through sheer force of personality.

These decisions have created an unknowable strike zone when companies try to anticipate lawsuits. Worse, in using nebulous standards, they have made it impossible for corporations to know if they are complying with Delaware law. When an advantageous deal comes before them, corporations do not know if they should swing or not.  

Close observers have watched and worried over this trend for years. In fact, two important articles, one of which goes back to the turn of the century and was co-authored by the late Chancellor William Allen, Strine and then-Vice Chancellor Jack Jacobs, and another co-authored by Strine, Jacobs and Hamermesh, identified the principles underlying the current legislation as reflecting Delaware’s traditional approach to corporate law. The articles, which both predate Musk’s loss on his compensation package, addressed ways in which those traditions were under stress. The current bill reflects a good faith attempt to ensure that Delaware corporate law, as was understood and applied for many years, can be relied upon. It is designed to reaffirm what it was until recent years and to address departures from that tradition that have caused legitimate concern among companies in all industries and regions.

The amendments offer clearer, brighter-line definitions of key terms like “disinterested director” and “controlling shareholder.” They also establish procedures that offer safe harbors for companies to use in transacting with controlling shareholders or where members of the board have conflicts, so they can do the right thing and be confident that, if they do, they won’t be sued. Another provision places reasonable limits on a shareholder’s right to examine a company’s “books and records,” which has inflated over time to cover emails, text messages and other material that goes beyond that term’s normal and intended meaning. 

Opinion: This billionaire corporate law smash-and-grab could destroy Delaware’s economy

These details may not excite anyone not steeped in corporate law. Yet non-specialists who only see the rules being changed deserve an explanation, so that the quick answer — it’s all Musk — can be seen for what it is. Assisting the Legislature and the governor with statutory drafting has been an inspiring exercise in sound government — one joined by lawmakers and citizens with varied economic and political interests, united only in our desire to serve Delaware by ensuring that investor and manager interests are fairly balanced. That exercise will serve its purpose if, after enactment, long-standing principles of Delaware law that maintain high levels of protection for shareholders, in a way that also gives corporations needed clarity, are restored.

As a result, the playing surface in Delaware’s business arena will be more definitively lined and fairly balanced than it has been in years. With the proposed amendments, Delaware as umpire has yelled “play ball!” After that, it can again recede from view, a comforting and reliable backdrop to the competition that is rightly at the heart of the game.

William Chandler III is a partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and a former chancellor on the Delaware Court of Chancery. Lawrence Hamermesh is a professor emeritus at the Widener University Delaware School of Law.

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In the parlance of Delaware political and legal insiders, “the franchise” is king.

Without the franchise, the state couldn’t pay for public schools, police, prisons, social and health programs, beach replenishment, farm preservation or so much more.

Without the franchise, taxes would be significantly higher, or the state would need to slash services.

The franchise is Delaware’s system, which currently has 2.2 million businesses — and two-thirds of the Fortune 500 — incorporated in the nation’s second-smallest state. Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, Nvidia and the corporate parents of Google and Facebook and Instagram are among about 1,350 Large Corporate Filers who fork over $250,000 apiece in franchise taxes.

All told, those “incorporation revenues” are projected to directly generate $2 billion for the state treasury this year. That accounts for 29% of the state’s general fund revenue.

But today, fear is rampant in Delaware that the business-friendly franchise that some also call the “golden goose” is in serious danger of being cooked — that a mass corporate exodus or “DExit” is imminent.

Trepidation has grown over the last year since Elon Musk pulled Tesla and SpaceX out of Delaware and castigated the Delaware Chancery Court, which has long been considered the franchise’s crown jewel for its deft and reliable resolution of complicated business disputes.

“Absolute corruption,” Musk tweeted in December after the court’s chief judge rejected his $56 billion pay package from Tesla for the second time. The file-sharing platform Dropbox has announced it’s divorcing from Delaware, and other major companies such as Meta Platforms, the parent of social media giants Facebook and Instagram, say they might do the same.

So this month, new Gov. Matt Meyer, legislative leaders and a cadre of legal luminaries decided to neutralize the perceived threat before it gains ground.

Together, they crafted a complex proposal to revamp Delaware corporate law by essentially making it tougher for shareholders to sue founders and top executives for perceived conflicts.

They did so, Meyer and others involved in the process say, to alleviate concerns they are hearing from the nation’s corporate community that Chancery Court has grown increasingly unfriendly to top execs like Musk in mega-dollar cases.

Meyer, a Democrat and lawyer who took office Jan. 21, echoed other supporters when the bill was introduced Feb. 17. “We will protect our reputation and continue Delaware’s tradition of a balanced and measured approach, and we will do so relentlessly,” Meyer said.

Meyer’s concern is magnified by the impact a DExit would have on balancing the $6.8 billion state budget and maintaining public services during his four-year term, especially at a time when President Donald Trump is trying to cut critical federal funding to states.

Delaware needs and wants those $2 billion in incorporation revenues every year, plus a related $420 million the state gets from abandoned financial accounts at banks and other companies registered in the state, Meyer said.

“When one-third of your state’s budget is on the line and you’re eyeing down untold federal budget cuts, you have to make a choice: protect your residents or not. And I choose Delawareans every day,” Meyer said in an interview last week. “Any bill that helps improve our financial stability needs to be considered fully.”

Lawrence Hamermesh, professor emeritus at Widener University’s Delaware Law School and one of the bill’s drafters, said it will restore eroding confidence in corporate circles and prevent “catastrophic” cuts to the state budget.

“Unlike as long as I’ve been practicing and teaching corporate law, there is no longer the inclination to tell clients and to conclude that Delaware is the place to set up your corporation,” Hamermesh said. “That is potentially the source of a tipping point that would be devastating for the state and its taxpayers and workers and everybody here.”

The bill, which has bipartisan support that includes the Senate and House leadership, could become law within a month, said Delaware Senate Majority Leader Bryan Townsend, the chief sponsor.

While the bill currently has no effective date — spurring speculation that it could be retroactive and change the result of cases involving Musk and other executives — state Sen. Townsend said it’s being modified so the effective date would be after it’s signed into law.