Corporate and Business  Law Journal

By: Matthew Bartley

On August 21, 2019, a Delaware Chancery Court ruled that a fully executed written agreement—signed by relatively sophisticated parties—can be deemed unenforceable if uncertainty exists in the agreement’s formation. In Kotler v. Shipman Associates, LLC, C.A. No. 2017-0457-JRC (Del. Ch. Aug. 21, 2019, corrected (typo on page four) Aug. 27, 2019), the court ruled that an equity warrant agreement between an employee and her former employer was unenforceable because it did not codify the required objective intent of both parties to be bound by its provisions.

By: Ryan Lee
Facebook announced that it has agreed to pay $550 million to settle a class action lawsuit. The class action began over Facebook’s use of facial recognition technology in Illinois on Illinois residents. The case, In re Facebook Biometric Information Privacy Litigation (15-cv-03747-JD) (N.D. Cal.), comes specifically from a photo-labeling service rolled out by Facebook to make it easier to identify the people in your photos and then to tag them. The service, known as Tag Suggestions, uses a face-matching software to suggest the names of people in users’ photos.

By: Jacqueline Pakula

Rising student loan debt has been a prevalent issue in the lives of many Americans, both young and old. With tuition costs on the rise, the primary concern with student loans is that they seem to be taking longer to pay off and are accompanied by higher interest rates or repayment plans. Many students face hundreds of thousands of dollars of student loan debt as soon as they graduate from a university or college. The problem is widespread, and many students unfortunately find themselves in bankruptcy—unable to pay off their total debts.

By: Grace Michele Duval

During the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing and the close of “non-essential” businesses mark a new normal in American public life. The dictionary defines essential as “absolutely necessary, indispensable.”[1] Essential has yet to become a legal term of art concerning classification of corporate entities but there has been some guidance.

By: Zachary Rapp

On September 9, 2019, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice filed notice outlining the arbitration process associated with their challenge of the proposed acquisition of Aleris Corporation (“Aleris”) by Novelis Inc. (“Novelis”).

By: Kyle Broadfoot

T-Mobile and Sprint are the third- and fourth largest wireless service carriers in the United States, and they want to merge to create a cellular giant to compete with Verizon and AT&T. The two announced the plan in April 2018, when T-Mobile CEO John Legere announced that the two had reached an agreement on a $26 billion deal, followed by an application for approval by the Federal Communications Commission in June 2018.

By: Jada Allender

Altitude Express, Inc. v. Zarda is currently before the Supreme Court to determine whether discrimination based on sexual orientation is prohibited by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1 1964. Oral argument was heard on October 8, 2019 and a decision is expected in 2020.

By: Nicholas Beatty

On November 6, 2019, Plaintiff Gerald Lovoi, derivatively on behalf of Netflix, Inc. (“Netflix”), brought a stockholder derivative complaint against the company’s board of directors (the “Board”) and executive officers.

By: Benjamin Hill

As of April 2, 2020, the Coronavirus, or COVID-19, has sickened over 981,000 people on 6 continents worldwide, and has killed over 50,000. The virus has also had a substantial economic impact, hitting industries such as movie theaters, airlines, and hotels especially hard. In such an economic climate, companies may find themselves hard pressed to fulfill all of their contractual obligations, and wondering whether the virus triggers any contractual clauses that may terminate their duties to perform. Three such potential options are force majeure clauses, the doctrine of impossibility, and the doctrine of frustration.