By: Scott Waxman and Zack Sager
In Inter-Marketing Group USA, Inc. v. Armstrong, the Delaware Court of Chancery dismissed a derivative suit brought on behalf of a Delaware limited partnership because the plaintiff failed to make demand or show that demand was futile.
Read MoreBy Scott Waxman and Adrienne Wimberly
In Mesirov v. Enbridge Company, Inc., et al. C.A. No. 11314-VCS (Del. Ch. Aug.29, 2018), the Delaware Chancery Court dismissed five of eight counts alleged with respect to a transaction where Enbridge Energy Company (EEP) repurchased for $1 billion a two-thirds interest in Alberta Clipper Pipelines (AC interest), despite the fact that EEP had sold that same interest years prior for $800 million and the business had steadily declined since such sale. The dismissals were based primarily upon the language and obligations included in EEP’s limited partnership agreement.
By Scott E. Waxman and Annamarie C. Larson
In In re Bay Hills Emerging Partners I, L.P., et al (C.A. No. 2018-0234-JRS), Vice Chancellor Slights denied the defendants’ motion to dismiss claims related to their “for cause” removal as general partners, instead staying the action pending resolution of the claims filed in a Kentucky court. Regarding the forum selection issue, the Court of Chancery held that “the inclusion of the consent language and the lack of language indicating that Kentucky is the exclusive forum—such as by the use of the term ‘any’—[the LPA] does not contain clear language indicating that jurisdiction and venue must lie exclusively in Kentucky.”
By: Scott Waxman and Tami Mack
In Richard B. Gamberg 2007 Family Trust v. United Restaurant Group, L.P., C.A. No. 10994-VCMR (Del. Ch. January 26, 2018), the Court of Chancery held that limited partner, Richard B. Gamberg 2007 Family Trust (the “Plaintiff”), failed to meet its burden of proof with respect to various claims against United Restaurant Group L.P. (the “Partnership”), Atlantic Coast Dining, Inc. (the “General Partner”), and the directors/shareholders of the General Partner (the “Shareholder Defendants”; together with the Partnership and the General Partner, the “Defendants”), which included a mistake-based reformation claim, among other breach of contract and breach of fiduciary duty claims.
By: Scott Waxman and David Noll
On a motion to “’confirm the trial schedule,’” Vice Chancellor Glasscock determined that actions brought by the limited partners of a partnership based upon the general partner’s alleged fraud, self interest and breach of the partnership agreement were direct claims and therefore not subject to a stay pursuant to the partnership’s bankruptcy proceeding. Sehoy Energy LP et al. v. Haven Real Estate Group, LLC et al., C.A. No. 12387-VCG (Del. Ch. April 17, 2017), addressed a situation in which the general partner of a limited partnership (and the person controlling the general partner) used funds of the limited partnership to make investments into the business of a personal friend which ultimately resulted in the bankruptcy of the partnership.
By: Scott E. Waxman and James R. Parks
Vice Chancellor Glasscock, by memorandum opinion dated February 28, 2017, dismissed cross-motions for partial summary judgment in a dispute over the issuance of partnership units of Energy Transfer Equity, L.P., a Delaware master limited partnership (“ETE”). The challenged issuance (the “Issuance”) arose out of a contemplated, but never consummated, merger between ETE and The Williams Companies, Inc. (“Williams”), and was designed, according to the defendants, as a tool to improve ETE’s ability to enter into the merger by deferring some of ETE’s obligations to make distributions to its unitholders. The Issuance was intended to accomplish this by having certain unitholders give up their common units, which were entitled to quarterly distributions from ETE, in exchange for convertible units, which received distributions on a different schedule. Not all unitholders, however, were afforded the opportunity to participate in the Issuance and not all of the unitholders given the opportunity to participate chose to do so.
By: Scott Waxman and Eric Jay
In Grand Acquisition LLC v. Passco Indian Springs DST, C.A. No. 12003-VCMR (Del. Ch. Aug. 26, 2016) the Delaware Court of Chancery found that under the Delaware Statutory Trust Act (the “Act”), the governing instrument of a Delaware statutory trust (DST) does not need to affirmatively disavow the preconditions and defenses applicable to inspection rights related to a DST’s books and records under Section 3819 of the Act in order to create a separate and distinct contractual right that can, in some circumstances, render statutory preconditions and defenses inapplicable to such requests. Read More
By Eric Feldman and Priya Chadha
In Brinckerhoff v. Enbridge Energy Co., Inc., et al., C.A. No. 11314-VCS (April 29, 2016), the Delaware Court of Chancery reiterated its adherence to the principle stated in the Delaware Revised Uniform Limited Partnership Act (“DRULPA”) of giving “maximum effect to the principle of freedom of contract and to the enforceability of partnership agreements” as well as to the ability under DRULPA of parties to a limited partnership agreement to define their respective standards of care and scope of duties and liabilities, including to eliminate default fiduciary duties, and dismissed the plaintiff’s claims.
By Scott Waxman and Joshua Haft
The Chancery Court held that a plaintiff’s claim that a general partner was liable for breach of a limited partnership agreement, for which the general partner was previously found liable by the Chancery Court, was best viewed as a dual-natured claim. Dual-natured claims should be viewed as derivative for purposes of Chancery Court Rule 23.1 and the demand doctrine, but should be viewed as direct for purposes of claim termination after a merger that extinguished a limited partnership. Thus, the Chancery Court granted pro-rata recovery of a liability award for breach of a limited partnership agreement to limited partners who were not affiliated with the general partner at the time of the related-party merger that resulted in termination of the limited partnership.
By Scott Waxman and Max Kaplan
By letter-order dated November 25, 2015, Vice Chancellor John W. Noble issued a “Status Quo Order” in Capital Link Fund I, LLC v. Capital Point Management, LP. By this order, the court approved disbursement of certain administrative fees sought by defendants from the assets in dispute, but denied defendants’ request to pay its legal fees from the same disputed assets.
Plaintiffs in this action are limited partners to an investment fund of which defendant Capital Point Management, LP (“CPMLP”) is the general partner. In July of 2014, CPMLP caused the partnership to sell all of its assets to defendant Princeton Capital Corporation (“Princeton Capital”)—a CPMLP affiliate. Plaintiffs allege that CPMLP, in violation of the controlling partnership agreement, did so without providing notice to or obtaining approval from the limited partners or the partnership’s Board of Advisors.
By Scott Waxman and Joshua Haft
The Chancery Court held that a general partner of a master limited partnership breached the entity’s limited partnership agreement by failing to act in the best interests of the entity and instead acting in a manner that benefited the parent of its general partner and increased distributions to the entity’s common unitholders. The Chancery Court focused on the general partner’s failure to consider lessons learned from a similar past transaction and the inadequacy of the financial advisor’s fairness opinion.
In In re: El Paso Pipeline Partners, L.P. Derivative Litigation, plaintiff challenged two transactions in which El Paso Corporation (“Parent”) sold to El Paso Pipeline Partners, L.P., a master limited partnership (“El Paso MLP”), its interest in two subsidiaries of Parent, Southern LNG Company, L.L.C. and Elba Express, L.L.C. (collectively, “Elba”). Both subsidiaries were engaged in the liquefied natural gas (“LNG”) business. Parent is the parent company of El Paso MLP’s general partner, El Paso Pipeline GP Company, L.L.C. (the “General Partner”); and thus, Parent exercised control over El Paso MLP through the General Partner. In the first transaction, in March 2010, Parent dropped-down a 51% interest in Elba to El Paso MLP for total consideration of $963 million (the “Spring Dropdown”). In the second transaction, in November 2010, Parent dropped-down to El Paso MLP the remaining 49% interest in Elba for at least $931 million and 15% of another Parent subsidiary, for total consideration of $1.412 billion (the “Fall Dropdown”).
By Scott Waxman and Eric Jay
Chancery Court grants motion to dismiss against former limited partners seeking damages for a freeze-out merger they claimed was a self-dealing transaction by the general partner and its affiliates. The Court granted the motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction with regard to the general partner defendants based on a standard arbitration clause that referenced AAA Rules. The Court also granted the motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim with regard to the affiliated limited partner defendants because majority ownership of the merged entities, without more, did not create a fiduciary duty to the plaintiffs.
On February 10, 2015, Vice Chancellor Parsons issued a memorandum opinion in Lewis v. AimCo Properties, L.P., 2015 WL 557995, (Del. Ch. Feb. 10, 2015) granting Motions to Dismiss for each group of defendants in the case. The case was brought by several former holders of limited partnership units (“Plaintiffs”) in four Delaware limited partnerships (the “Partnerships”). Each of the Partnerships was managed by corporate entity general partners (“GP Defendants”) that were each indirectly owned by Apartment Investment and Management Company (“AimCo”). AimCo also indirectly held a majority of the limited partnership units of each Partnership through various affiliates (together with various officers, the “LP Defendants”).
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