Diller vs. Malone

The Delaware Chancery Court has issued its decision in the closely watched trial between Barry Diller and John Malone and their respective companies, IAC and Liberty Media.
Liberty owns all the high-voting stock and a majority of the votes in IAC but it has granted Diller, IAC’s CEO, an irrevocable proxy to vote these shares. IAC has proposed to spin-off four of its subsidiaries as independent public companies, and the dispute between IAC’s management (including Diller) and Liberty (including its Chairman, John Malone) is whether or not to replicate the IAC two-tiered voting structure in these spin-offs. Diller is contemplating voting Liberty’s shares in favor of the proposal which Liberty vehemently opposes.

The clear winner in this round seems to be Diller. The court concluded that Liberty failed to demonstrate that Diller breached or threatened to breach any contractual duty he owes to Liberty, and rejected Liberty’s claim that the proposed single-tier spin-off gives rise to any right of consent on Liberty’s part. The court held that it was premature to rule on claims relating to the fiduciary duties of the IAC board of directors. IAC was represented by our frequent blog contributor Theodore Mirvis and his partners at Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz.

The full opinion can be found here.