La Court of Chancery del Delaware 30.01.2024 , Tornetta v. Musk ed altri, C.A. No. 2018-0408-KSJM, dichiara nullo (rescission) l’accordo 2018 sul compenso di Musk perchè eccessivo : o meglio M. non ha provato che era fair: <Defendants bore the burden of proving fair price. Given the conflicting testimony concerning the projections, Defendants failed to prove the factual predicate for their argument that all the milestones were “ambitious” and difficult to achieve. This argument does not support a finding of fair price>, p. 187.
Irrilevante il consenso degli azionisti, non essendo stati adeguatamente informati: <<Defendants argue that disinterested stockholder approval is “compelling evidence” that the price was fair.899 The stockholder vote is one component of the fair price analysis, but whether the vote represents a form of market evidence that can support a certain price depends on the sufficiency of the disclosure. Generally, a stockholder vote is only “compelling evidence” of fairness absent a disclosure violation.900 The Delaware Supreme Court in Weinberger held that an uninformed stockholder vote is totally “meaningless.”901 Under Weinberger, therefore, the stockholder vote is a meaningless indicator as to fair price. In SolarCity III, the high court took a more nuanced approach, affording a stockholder vote some weight despite a deficient proxy statement where the key issue was SolarCity’s value. The high court noted that there was significant public information available concerning that issue, “SolarCity traded in an efficient market,” and a strong independent fiduciary positively affected the process.902 Defendants did not establish those facts here. Because the stockholder vote was not fully informed, it does not support a finding of fair price“, p. 190-191.
Rigettata l’eccezione di -in sostanza- arricchimento senza causa: le azioni già detenute son più che sufficienti. “Defendants argue that rescission is a harsh consequence that would leave Musk uncompensated. But Musk’s preexisting equity stake provided him tens of billions of dollars for his efforts. And Defendants have not offered a viable alternative short of leaving the Grant intact“
Il punto più interessante è quello degli aspetti pratici di corporate governance e cioè della supremazia di Musk nel Board: nessuno ha seriamente negoziato il compenso da vera controparte, limitandosi invece a supinamente ratificarlo. V. il § “2.Boardroom And Managerial Supremacy” a p. . 115 ss.
Ad es. <<Based on this list alone, it could be said that Musk wields unusually expansive managerial authority, equaling or even exceeding the imperial CEOs of the 1960s>>, p. 121 (v. il rif. ai SuperstarCEOs p. 121 ss).
Oppure: <<The references to “supine servants” and “an overweening master” is hyperbolic, and no doubt deliberately so to give emphasis to the difficulty of the standard. But it hits home here. There is no greater evidence of Musk’s status as a transaction-specific controller than the Board’s posture toward Musk during the process that led to the Grant. Put simply, neither the Compensation Committee nor the Board acted in the best interests of the Company when negotiating Musk’s compensation plan. In fact, there is barely any evidence of negotiations at all. Rather than negotiate against Musk with the mindset of a third party, the Compensation Committee worked alongside him, almost as an advisory body. Multiple aspects of the process reveal Musk’s control over it, including the timeline, the absence of negotiations over the magnitude of the Grant or its other terms, and the committee’s failure to conduct a benchmarking analysis. In the end, the key witnesses said it all by effectively admitting that they did not view the process as an arm’s length negotiation>>, 128-129.
Sul caso v. l’approfondito saggio di Lipton, Ann, The Legitimation of Shareholder Primacy ( https://ssrn.com/abstract=5120765 ), § 1, The Tesla trap. L’autrice trova incoerenza tra il professare shareholder primacy (come fanno i giudici del Delaware) e bocciare un compenso a Musk che ha portato ad un incremento enorme del corso azionario Tesla.
Non c’è invece alcuna incoerenza. Il rispetto delle regole procedurali va giudicato ex ante cioè a prescindere dall’esito, non ex post nel senso di sanzionare l’eventuale loro violazione qualora l’esito sia stato negativo e invece non considerare la vioalzione se l’esito sia stato positivo.
E’ proprio per evitare abusi della maggioranza che sono poste regole procedurali.
Da condividere quanto scrive il prof. Bebchuk (consulente dell’attore Tornetta, come si legge in calce): <<These characterizations of the court’s decision are quite unwarranted and unfair. The court’s decision did not seek to overrule or suppress the stockholders’ will. Rather, it concluded that, because the disclosures to the voting stockholders were seriously deficient, the 2018 vote’s outcome was not a meaningful expression of the stockholders’ will.
Whereas the court decision did not overrule a meaningful expression of the stockholder will, it did invalidate the Board’s decision because it was skewed by Musk’s influence and was inconsistent with fiduciary duties. Such invalidation does not undermine stockholder democracy but rather supports it, for stockholder democracy works best when proposals are bought to vote by directors acting faithfully in stockholder interests>> (Bebchuk L., Tesla Should Take the Court Decision Seriously, Not Dismissively, Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance, 10.06.2024).
Sul ruolo di clearance/nulla osta, svolto dall’approvazione dei soci, v. ora il saggio di Iman Anbabtawi, The Limits of Shareholder Ratification, J. of corp. law, 31.01.2025, spt. II.B.2 (“Preconditions for the Effectiveness of Shareholder Approval., 465 (“To ratify either explicit or inherent conflicts at the board level, a shareholder vote approving a board decision must satisfy certain preconditions. The shareholder vote must be (1) disinterested, (2) fully informed, (3) uncoerced, and (4) specifically related to the matter being ratified.113 Given the dramatic reduction in judicial scrutiny of boards conferred by shareholder ratification, courts examine closely whether the foregoing preconditions are met“).
Contrario alla pretesamente eccessiva interferenza delle corti del Delaware è Stephen Bainbridge, sostenitore di una -potremmo dire- Directors’ primacy. V. il suo post 4 febbraio u.s. “Chief Justice Seitz’s Defense of Delaware Corporate Law Misses the Point” e ivi il rinvio al suo articolo “A Course Correction for Controlling Shareholder Transactions”.