Recently the well-known Dutch telecom company KPN got involved in litigation in Delaware, involving issues like minority freeze-out, entire fairness review and poison-pill defences. The Deal Professor has the details of the dispute, go and read his sound analysis. See here for iBasis, Inc.'s complaint, see here for KPN's answer and counterclaim.
Interestingly, VC Leo Strine of the Delaware Chancery Court agreed during a hearing on August 14 to expedite the claims of all of the parties and agreed to hold a hearing on October 8 and 9. The transcript of that hearing contains the usual Strine nuggets, including some remarks about Delaware case law on pill-pulling and the way things work in the Netherlands.
You know what you get in the Netherlands from the government? You get a check that comes to you that's for your vacation. Just like, if your kid's in school, you know what you get in the beginning of the year? You get a check, I think, that helps with school supplies. But they're socialists. They were. It's a cool country. I like it.
Leaving aside whether this is spot-on (well, the coolness part is anyway), it's always good to hear somebody with the stature of VS Strine say things like these. Especially as some other folks from the US have recently started to bash our lovely capital Amsterdam for no apparent reason and without any - read: 0 - solid ground.
For a strong rebuttal to this nonsense on stilts, please do check the below video.
Back to VC Strine. Maybe his bias towards the Dutch was influenced a little by my 6 month stay at the Delaware Chancery and Supreme Court last year. Or so I like to tell myself...
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