Inspection Of Books And Records

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It’s been a while since the Business Court devoted a full opinion to a shareholder’s rights to inspect corporate records.  But last week, Judge Bledsoe filled that gap with his Order and Final Judgment in Sharman v. Fortran Corp., 2018 NCBC 27. 

Fortran?  If you are thinking that Fortran Corp. must control the rights to the Fortran computer coding language, like I was, you are wrong. This Fortran Corporation is a "telecommunications system integrator dedicated to designing, sourcing, implementing and maintaining complex communications solutions."  That’s what its last Annual Report says.

The Sharman Opinion deals with the request of multiple Fortran shareholders to inspect a wide swath of Fortran’s corporate records.  I can’t think of another area of the law where you get a statutory right to discovery before filing a lawsuit (though it’s limited to what the statute says you can get).  And you are entitled to a response in five business days!  No thirty or sixty days waiting for a response.  Plus you might be entitled to recover your attorneys’ fees.  I wonder why every claim by a shareholder against a director or officer for, say, a breach of fiduciary duty, isn’t preceded by the use of this powerful tool.

There are two "separate and distinct categories" of inspection requests.  Op. 16 (quoting Russell M. Robinson, II, Robinson on North Carolina Corporation Law § 10.0 1(7th ed.2017)).  These are generally referred to as "absolute rights of inspection" (per. G.S.§55-16-02(a), and "qualified rights of inspection (per. G.S. §55-16-02(b)).

Absolute Right Of Inspection

Section 55-16-01(e) of the General Statutes lists certain records which a corporation is required to keep.  A shareholder is "entitled" to inspect these records:

(1)  Its articles or restated articles of incorporation and all amendments to them currently in effect;

(2) Its bylaws or restated bylaws and all amendments to them currently in effect;

(3) Resolutions adopted by its board of directors creating one or more classes or series of shares, and fixing their relative rights, preferences, and limitations, if shares issued pursuant to those resolutions are outstanding;

(4) The minutes of all shareholders’ meetings, and records of all action taken by shareholders without a meeting, for the past three years;

(5) All written communications to shareholders generally within the past three years and the financial statements required to be made available to the shareholders for the past three years under G.S. 55-16-20;

(6) A list of the names and business addresses of its current directors and officers; and

(7) Its most recent annual report delivered as required by G.S. 55-16-22.

"Absolute" Doesn’t Mean Automatic

Not every shareholder has these "absolute" inspection rights. Only "qualified shareholders" can exercise them.  Only those who have held their shares for more than six months before making their demand for inspection, or who hold at least five percent of any class of the corporation’s shares are "qualified."  N.C. Gen. Stat. §55-16-02(g). 

"Qualified" Rights Are Tougher To Obtain

Those shareholders trying to exercise the "qualified rights" of Section 55-16-02(b) have to satisfy a more difficult standard.  The requesting shareholder must show that his:Continue Reading NC Business Court On Shareholder Inspection Rights

When is the last time that you needed an "original" document for a trial?  Maybe never.  The Rules of Evidence permit the admissibility of "duplicates."  Rule 1003 of the North Carolina Rules of Evidence says that:

A duplicate is admissible to the same extent as an original unless (1) a genuine question is raised as

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You probably know that North Carolina is an employment-at-will state.  That means that in the absence of any employment contract, you can be fired from your job at any time, for good reason, no reason at all, or even a bad reason.

There’s a skinny exception to that rule: that an employee cannot be terminated…

Egelhof v. Szulik, 2008 NCBC 2 (N.C. Super. Ct. Feb. 4, 2008)(Tennille)

It’s hard to imagine a more inadequate plaintiff than Egelhof to undertake the fiduciary responsibility of being a plaintiff in a derivative action against Red Hat, a publicly traded company. Egelhof was only 24 years old, and held only a few hundred dollars of Red Hat’s stock. He had become a plaintiff in response to a solicitation on the internet. As the Court described Egelhof, "[h]e had little investing experience, no experience in litigation, no prior connection with the [his] law firm, no personal knowledge of [the corporation] and its operations, and a minor criminal record."

The Court concluded that this plaintiff "lacked any credentials to act as a fiduciary for a company in multi-million dollar litigation." Noting Egelhof’s paltry stake in Red Hat, the Court held that "[w]hile the size of ownership is not determinative of standing, a potential plaintiff’s lack of a real financial stake in the litigation is a warning sign that he or she may not be willing or able to devote the time necessary to fulfill the fiduciary obligations imposed by law on a shareholder derivative plaintiff."

These factors alone would probably not have warranted sanctions, but Egelhof was completely uninvolved in his case. He relocated, more than once, and never gave his lawyers a forwarding address. He sold his stock during the course of the lawsuit, creating a significant standing issue, but never mentioned this to his lawyers. He had never even met his lawyers until the night before his deposition and had spent a total of five hours on the case by the time he was deposed.

The Court’s sanction to Egelhof was to prohibit him from being a plaintiff in a class action or derivative action in North Carolina for the next five years. The lawyers came in for an equally harsh sanction. Continue Reading Sanctions For Derivative Action Plaintiff And His Lawyers