Facebook CEO not heading to court in Del. after stock plan is shelved

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Mark Zuckerberg will not come  to Delaware for a court appearance. 

Facebook Friday dropped plans to issue a new class of stock that would have allowed CEO Mark Zuckerberg to regain voting control of the company while selling off a large percentage of his stock holdings.

The decision to drop the stock plan was announced by Grant & Eisenhofer, a Wilmington law firm that represented some Facebook shareholders.

A group of shareholders claimed the stock would affect the value of their Facebook shares and mainly benefit Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg plans to give away most of his personal wealth, which mainly consists of Facebook shares.

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A Chancery Court trial had been scheduled for Tuesday, with Zuckerberg slated to face questions on the stock deal. 

Stockholders also challenged the way in which the reclassification plan had been negotiated with a special committee of Facebook’s board of directors.

The Facebook board opted to drop the stock plan.

Stuart Grant of  Grant & Eisenhofer,  offered the following:  “We’re thrilled that Facebook has dropped the reclassification,” Mr. Grant said, noting that shareholders were not seeking economic or other damages. “Stopping the issuance of the non-voting C shares is all the relief we were asking for at trial. Today’s move is a total victory for stockholders.”

Non-voting shares are not unknown with companies as large as Comcast and as small as  Newark-based Artesian Resources having classes of stocks that allow founding families to have voting control.

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