The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu The leading online blog in the fields of corporate governance and financial regulation. Tue, 16 Jun 2026 11:32:57 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.8 https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/cropped-photography-4-e1706898544564-1-32x32.png Materiality and Efforts Qualifiers—Some Distinctions, Some Without Differences – The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu 32 32 Materiality and Efforts Qualifiers—Some Distinctions, Some Without Differences https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2018/10/31/materiality-and-efforts-qualifiers-some-distinctions-some-without-differences/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=materiality-and-efforts-qualifiers-some-distinctions-some-without-differences https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2018/10/31/materiality-and-efforts-qualifiers-some-distinctions-some-without-differences/#comments Wed, 31 Oct 2018 12:57:41 +0000 https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/?p=112056?d=20181031085741EDT Posted by Daniel E. Wolf and Eric L. Schiele, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, on Wednesday, October 31, 2018
Editor's Note:

Daniel E. Wolf and Eric L. Schiele are partners at Kirkland & Ellis LLP. This post is based on a Kirkland & Ellis publication by Mr. Wolf and Mr. Schiele, and is part of the Delaware law series; links to other posts in the series are available here. Related research from the Program on Corporate Governance includes M&A Contracts: Purposes, Types, Regulation, and Patterns of Practice and Allocating Risk Through Contract: Evidence from M&A and Policy Implications (discussed on the Forum here), both by John C. Coates, IV.

Much deserved attention has been paid to the first finding of a “material adverse change” (MAC) by a Delaware court in the recent Akorn decision. Of perhaps equal practical importance to dealmakers is the court’s guidance on a question that has long occupied draftspersons—whether or not there is, and the extent of, any legal difference between the many shades of qualifiers used in deal agreements on two key terms: materiality modifiers and efforts covenants. Building on earlier Delaware decisions, the court reached a clear split decision on this question.

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