The courthouse door in North Carolina is now wide open to antitrust plaintiffs making indirect purchaser claims, after the Court of Appeals’ decision this week in Teague v. Bayer. That decision reverses the North Carolina Business Court’s dismissal of the case for lack of standing.
For those whose hearts don’t start beating faster when
Wachovia and Wells Fargo have probably reached a settlement with the Plaintiff in the class action lawsuit over the merger between the two banks. The settlement, announced in Wachovia’s Form 8-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday evening, will if finalized require approval by the North Carolina Business Court.
The 8-K filing references
Ehrenhaus v. Baker, 2008 NCBC 20 (N.C. Super. Ct. Dec. 5, 2008)
The North Carolina Business Court has denied Plaintiff’s Motion for a Preliminary Injunction with regard to the pending merger between Wachovia and Wells Fargo.
The opinion of Judge Diaz was issued early Friday evening, after the close of business. The principal holdings
One of the unusual things about the litigation over the Wachovia-Wells Fargo merger (which I’m hoping will come to a close soon so this blog won’t be all Wachovia all the time) was the flood of letters and emails written to the Court. Judge Diaz received over 200 pieces of correspondence about the case.
The
There’s only one thing for sure after today’s preliminary injunction hearing in the lawsuit over the merger between Wachovia and Wells Fargo. And that is that Judge Diaz displayed remarkable patience after more than three hours of argument from five different lawyers.
My favorite sound bites from the very long hearing (which are not verbatim
Can it be that the Share Exchange Agreement, which gave Wells Fargo 40% of the voting control over Wachovia stock, is invalid? That’s exactly what the Plaintiff in the shareholder class action asking for an injunction regarding the Wachovia-Wells Fargo merger is saying in his Reply Brief filed yesterday.
In this new argument —
Wachovia has filed its Brief in opposition to Plaintiff’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction, laying out the case why its Board of Directors fulfilled their fiduciary duties in agreeing to the Merger with Wells Fargo.
The principal factual support for Wachovia’s Brief is the Affidavit of Dona Davis Young, a member of the Wachovia Board
This morning on CNBC, North Carolina State Treasurer Richard Moore referred to Wells Fargo’s pending acquisition of Wachovia as a "shotgun marriage," "highway robbery," and as not being fair to Wachovia shareholders.
The State Treasurer has a significant interest in this merger. The North Carolina Retirement System was holding 2,275,664 shares of Wachovia stock as of
If you are following the shareholder class action seeking to enjoin the Wachovia-Wells Fargo merger, Plaintiff filed his Brief in support of his Motion for Preliminary Injunction yesterday.
The focal point of Plaintiff’s argument is that the deal protection devices in the Wachovia-Wells Fargo Merger agreement were too hastily negotiated by the Wachovia board, and
The North Carolina Business Court today denied Plaintiff’s request for expedited discovery in the putative shareholder class action seeking to enjoin the Wachovia-Wells Fargo Merger, but agreed to decide Plaintiff’s Motion for a Preliminary Injunction on an expedited basis, setting a hearing three weeks from today. (I wrote about the Motion for Expedited Discovery in