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ILE announces new resource for scholars and students of Delaware corporate law

October 02, 2017

Delaware Corporation Law Resource Center is now available online

Penn Law and the Institute for Law and Economics (ILE) are pleased to announce the availability of an important new resource for scholars and students of Delaware corporate law. Constructed in cooperation with Widener University Delaware Law School and members of the Delaware Bench and Bar, and with the financial support of Penn Law, ILE and CSC Global, the Delaware Corporation Law Resource Center can now be accessed at http://www.DelawareCorporateHistory.org.

This website has two principal components. The first is a compilation of resources relating to the Delaware General Corporation Law, including a link to the text of the statute, and links to the bills to amend the statute since its general revision in 1967. This portion of the website also includes links to annual commentaries on those amendments, the reports and minutes generated in the 1967 revision process, and memoranda disseminated by the Council of the Delaware State Bar Association Corporation Law Section describing some of the more significant and controversial amendments to the statute.

The second component of the website is a repository for materials constituting oral histories of iconic corporate law decisions of the Delaware courts since 1980, dealing with the director’s fiduciary duty of care, duties in takeovers, and freezeouts by controlling stockholders. This portion of the website is a work in progress, but for some of the cases it already contains the opinions in the case, briefs, selected transcripts of oral arguments, and selected key documents from the record. Most notably, the oral history compilation includes high quality videotaped interviews of lawyers and judges involved in the case, who describe the back story of the case with details not available through review of the courts’ opinions.

ILE is also pleased to announce the release of the first in a series of composite videos setting forth the background of each case. The first such video describes the background of Smith v. Van Gorkom and presents, in narrative fashion, selected excerpts from the video interviews of the participants. That video is also available on the oral history portion of the new website.

ILE hopes and expects that this website, which is freely available to the public, will prove to be a valuable resource for the teaching and development of Delaware corporate law. ILE welcomes suggestions for ways in which the website can be made even more useful to those interested in its subject.