The Delaware Court of Chancery recently granted, in part, a stockholder’s request, after a trial without live testimony, for corporate books and records pursuant to DGCL Section 220, in a matter styled Paraflon Investments Ltd. v. Linkable Networks, Inc., C.A. No. 2017-0611-JRS (Del. Ch. April 3, 2020).

Readers of these pages over the last 15 years will recognize a familiar pattern in the procedural history of this Section 220 case, as did the Court. See footnote 1 and accompanying text. The company typically resists the request for records, suit is filed, and after trial the Court (sometimes) grants the requests in whole or in part.

Many of the hundred-plus highlights on this blog of Section 220 decisions reflect the reality that Section 220 is not a precise tool.

This pithy decision provides a succinct overview of the pre-trial statutory prerequisites, for example, to comply with the form and manner aspects of a demand, and the elements of a statutory claim that need to be established at trial by a preponderance of the evidence.

This opinion also discusses several nuances of this type of statutory claim that have been developed via case law over the last few decades but are not obvious from a reading of the statute. This type of statutory analysis should be compared with a purely contract-based demand for books and records in the LLC context.