Directors as Auctioneers: A Guide To Revlon-Land
Stephen Bainbridge has a new e-book out about a 25-year-old Delaware Supreme Court case.
Stephen Bainbridge has a new e-book out about a 25-year-old Delaware Supreme Court case.
What’s the book about? In Revlon, Inc. v. MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings, Inc., 506 A.2d 173 (Del. 1986), the Delaware Supreme Court explained that when a target board of directors enters Revlon-land, the board’s role changes from that of “defenders of the corporate bastion to auctioneers charged with getting the best price for the stockholders at a sale of the company.”
Unfortunately, the Court’s colorful metaphor obfuscated some serious doctrinal problems. What standards of judicial review applied to director conduct outside the borders of Revlon-land? What standard applied to director conduct falling inside Revlon-land’s borders? And when did one enter that mysterious country?
By the mid-1990s, the Delaware Supreme Court had worked out a credible set of answers to those questions. The seemingly settled rules made doctrinal sense and were sound from a policy perspective.
Indeed, my thesis herein is that Revlon and its progeny should be praised for having grappled—mostly successfully—with the core problem of corporation law: the tension between authority and accountability. A fully specified account of corporate law must incorporate both values. On the one hand, corporate law must implement the value of authority in developing a set of rules and procedures providing efficient decision making. U.S. corporate law does so by adopting a system of director primacy.
It’s available for your Kindle for $9.99 and includes “free wireless delivery via Amazon Whispernet.” That’s probably worth 10 bucks alone.
