Delaware Court of Chancery Dismisses Shareholder Derivative Action Against Interested Directors Following Secondary Offering
By Annette Becker and Mark Hammes
In In re Molycorp, Inc. Shareholder Derivative Litigation, the Delaware Court of Chancery dismissed claims brought against director representatives of private equity investors for breach of fiduciary duties, aiding and abetting, and unjust enrichment for failure to state a claim. The Court held that the private equity investors along with certain directors exercised their contractual rights to sell their stock in Molycorp Inc. a publicly traded corporation (“Molycorp”) in a secondary offering and the directors were under no obligation to delay such a demand registration during a time in which Molycorp was experiencing a cash shortfall.
Molycorp was engaged in the production and sale of rare earth oxides. Before Molycorp’s July 2010 IPO, three initial private equity investors (PEIs) negotiated a Registration Rights Agreement. The agreement secured the PEIs right to demand that Molycorp register their shares in a secondary offering. The results of the July 2010 IPO did not yield the funds expected, and a secondary offering of Molycorp shares in February 2011 left the company still short on cash. A potential loan from the Department of Energy fell through, and potential financing arrangements with two other companies looked increasingly unlikely. In May 2011, the PEIs exercised their demand registration rights, and the offering was held in June 2011. Due to a recent spike in the price of rare earth oxides, the PEIs (and several directors appointed by the PEIs) sold their shares in the resulting June offering at an inflated value. In September 2011, the rare earth oxide bubble burst. Subsequent efforts by Molycorp to make up for its cash shortfall by issuing convertible notes left it with inadequate funds to implement its planned production increase. As a result Molycorp missed out on potential profits from the rare earth element bubble.