Legal News

Breaking News: Diller Triumphs Over Malone in Delaware

By Dan Slater

This just in: A Delaware court has ruled against Liberty Media in its litigation with IAC, holding that IAC’s Barry Diller doesn’t need Liberty’s consent to pursue his proposed IAC spinoffs.

For those of you consumed lately by other headline-grabbing Delaware news (i.e. Bear), here’s the backstory on the IAC/Liberty spat: In January, IAC filed for a declaratory judgment approving a plan to break up its Internet empire into four pieces. Liberty, chaired by John Malone, objected to the move, alleging that CEO Diller improperly aimed to dilute Liberty’s interest in the spun-off companies and wipe out the control premium that Liberty could command for its stake in the spun-off companies.

Liberty filed a countersuit, trying to replace Diller and IAC’s remaining board members last week, including Edgar Bronfman Jr., Steve Rattner and Diller’s wife, Diane Von Furstenberg (whose famous wrap dresses have her embroiled in litigation of her own). Liberty insisted that there’s an “equal treatment provision” in the stockholder’s agreement which means that, in a breakup of IAC, the capital structure must remain the same.

Today, Vice Chancellor Stephen Lamb disagreed. Here’s the story from the Journal’s Jessica Vascellaro.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on March 28, 2008 (boomark / email).