Appellate Law

CA1: stock option period strictly enforced

By S. COTUS

Mariasch v. Gillette Company, 07-1549.  An employee got some stock options from his employer.  He says he gets to exercise them late.  There is a choice of law issue, but the First says that this is really a matter of internal corporate governance, and therefore the state of incorporation of the corporation (Delaware) provides the rule of decision.  Applying First Marblehead Corp. v. House, 473 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 2006) (our coverage here), the First says that the option exercise period must be strictly enforced.  An equitable estoppel argument fails, because at a deposition he said some things that foreclosed it.

Full post as published by Appellate Law and Practice on March 27, 2008 (boomark / email).