A Delaware law firm played a role in a case that led the Delaware Court of Chancery to rule that the two most senior officers of Dole Food Co. Inc. breached their fiduciary duties in structuring a 2013 buyout that drastically undervalued the company.
Vice Chancellor Travis Laster held that Dole CEO David Murdock, along with the company’s chief operating officer and general counsel Michael Carter undermined shareholders and misled the board of directors in their handling of Dole’s privatized buyout, which closed in November 2013 in an all-cash deal valued at $1.2 billion. Murdock and Carter were ordered to pay shareholders more than $148 million in damages.
Lester added, “Although factually large, the award is conservative relative to what the evidence could support.”
“We are extremely pleased not only with the large financial recovery, but the forceful way in which the court excoriated the defendants for the brazen way they tried to hijack Dole for their own advantage in taking the company private,” said Stuart Grant of Grant & Eisenhofer was co-lead counsel for the shareholders.
In his 106-page opinion, Chancellor Laster found that two other key defendants – Dole president David DeLorenzo and the company’s financial advisor Deutsche Bank Securities – were not liable for their respective roles, though he noted that Deutsche Bank “acted improperly by favoring Murdock and treating him as the bank’s real client in transactions before the merger, even when Deutsche Bank was official representing Dole.”
In addition to G&E, shareholders were represented by Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP, along with Kessler Topaz Meltzer & Check LLP.
Grant & Eisenhofer is also primary counsel for certain shareholders in the appraisal of Dole Food Co.
Established in 1997, Grant & Eisenhofer is one of the top litigation and arbitration firms in the United States.
The firm’s clients include institutional investors, whistleblowers and other plaintiffs in securities class actions, derivative lawsuits, consumer class actions, antitrust suits, bankruptcy litigation and whistleblower cases involving the False Claims Act.
G&E has recovered more than $28 billion in the last 10 years and has been cited by RiskMetrics for securing the highest average investor recovery in securities class actions, according to a release.
Grant & Eisenhofer has been named one of the country’s top plaintiffs’ law firms by The National Law Journal for the past 11 years. G&E was recently named one of the nation’s Most Feared Plaintiffs Firms by Law360 for the second year in a row. The firm has more than 60 attorneys, with offices in Wilmington, New York and Chicago. For more information, visit www.gelaw.com. (From Grant Eisenhower)
