As Frank Reynolds of Thomson Reuters reports, the long-running effort of a stockholder to obtain additional documents from Wal-Mart in a Section 220 proceeding appears to have reached a conclusion, though it may still be the subject of second appeal. Frank Reynolds reports that the Court of Chancery ruled from the bench on May 7 that Wal-Mart should not be held in contempt and the plaintiff was not correct in asserting that Wal-Mart failed to comply with the Supreme Court opinion.
Prior posts on these pages have highlighted the Delaware Supreme Court decision ordering Wal-Mart to produce certain documents in response to a Section 220 demand, with exceptions applicable to the attorney-client privilege. Subsequently, the stockholder argued in the Court of Chancery that Wal-Mart did not comply with the ruling of the Supreme Court to the extent that the retailer did not produce all the documents that ruling required.
Delaware decisions have often instructed lawyers to use DGCL Section 220 as one of the “tools at hand” to acquire details and data about potential claims before filing a plenary lawsuit. The saga of the Wal-Mart proceedings involving Section 220, and other cases noted on these pages over the last ten years, support the observation that Section 220 can be a blunt instrument, more akin to a sledgehammer than a scalpel, and utilization of the instrument is often expensive and time-consuming as well as unsatisfying.