In a case in Delaware Chancery Court concerning breach of fiduciary duty surrounding an acquisition, a well-known expert has had the court partially exclude his testimony. For example, one aspect of the report provided his opinions on facts omitted from the proxy statement. The court noted that this amounted to a legal opinion of materiality, which is an issue for the court, so he was precluded from testifying in that regard. Some other aspects of his report fell into a gray area, but it did not provide a meaningful basis for evaluation and was largely personal thinking and judgment, the court noted. The expert had testified in the high-profile Dell case presided by the same judge, Laster, who wrote: “His opinions on the sale process in this case thus differ from the helpful analysis he offered about the management-led buyout in Dell, which rested not only on his thinking and judgment, but also on a data set of management buyouts he collected.” The court ruled that the expert may not testify on certain subjects of his report.

The case is In re Columbia Pipeline Group, 2022 Del. Ch. LEXIS 180, and a case analysis and full opinion can be found on the BVLaw platform.