DealLawyers.com Blog

In our “Appraisal Rights” Practice Area, we’re posting memos about the recent Delaware Chancery Court opinion in Dole Food. Here’s an excerpt from Kevin LaCroix’s blog about the case:

It turns out that there were some very company specific reasons why Dole in general and Carter in particular were querulous about Delaware’s courts. On August 27, 2015, in a massive 108-page post-trial opinion, Vice Chancellor Travis Laster, held that Dole’s CEO David Murdock, and Carter, whom Laster described as Murdock’s “right-hand man,” breached their fiduciary duties in connection with the November 2013 transaction in which an entity Murdock controlled acquired the 60% of Dole’s shares that Murdock did not already own. Laster’s opinion found that in connection with the process that led to the transaction, Murdock and Carter engaged in “fraud,” that prevented Dole’s shareholder from receiving a fairer price in the transaction. Laster held Murdock and Carter jointly and severally liable for damages of $148.1 million, plus pre- and post-judgment interest.

Laster’s opinion is long but it makes for some very interesting reading. The 91 year-old Murdock does not come off well in Laster’s opinion, at all. Laster describes Murdock as “an old-school, my-way-or-the-highway controller, fixated on his authority and the power and privileges that went with it.” In footnote 6 of the opinion, Laster writes about Murdock that “by dint of his prodigious wealth and power, he has grown accustomed to deference and fallen into the habit of characterizing events however he wants. That habit serves a witness poorly when he faces a skilled cross-examiner who has contrary documents and testimony at his disposal.”