Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Corporate Governance Blogs -> The Harvard Law School Corporate Governance Blog

OR PHONE (866) 635-1838 for Bankruptcy Help, (866) 635-6190 for Divorce,
(866) 635-2689 for Personal Injury or (866) 635-9402 for Criminal Defense

Find a Local Lawyer

Bankruptcy (866) 635-1838
Divorce (866) 635-6190
Personal Injury (866) 635-2689
Criminal Defense (866) 635-9402

Corporate Governance

: The Harvard Law School Corporate Governance Blog

The Airgas Case and Our Work on Staggered Boards

By Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance

ADVERTISEMENTS

Editor?s Note: Lucian Bebchuk, Alma Cohen, John Coates and Guhan Subramanian teach at Harvard Law School. Their academic work on staggered boards is available here, here and here.

The Delaware Supreme Court is going to be hearing arguments soon in the case of Airgas vs. Air Products. In its briefs, as well as in oral argument before the Chancery Court, Airgas used our academic work on staggered board as evidence for its position. However, our academic articles, and the empirical evidence put forward in them, support the opposite position. The case before the Delaware courts arose from Air Products? unsolicited offer for Airgas. Facing opposition from Airgas to its offer, Air Products ran a competing slate for the August 2010 annual meeting and was able to replace one-third of the directors. (Airgas has a staggered board and thus only one-third of its directors came up for re-election at that annual meeting.) Air Products also succeeded in getting majority support for passing a bylaw moving up Airgas? next annual meeting to January 2011, thus creating the possibility that another one-third of the directors could be replaced then.

Click here to read the complete post...

Full post as published by The Harvard Law School Corporate Governance Blog on November 02, 2010 (boomark / email).