In a recent Delaware Court of Chancery decision that addressed claims of breach of contract and fraud in connection with the sale of a business, the Court announced that Delaware law allows for sandbagging, which can be described as allowing a buyer of a business to sue for breach of a representation made in an agreement for the sale of a business even if the buyer knew that the representation was false–before closing–and when the agreement was signed.

In Arwood v. AW Site Services, LLC, C.A. No. 2019-0904-JRS (Del. Ch. Mar. 9, 2022), while acknowledging that the Delaware Supreme Court has not definitively ruled on this issue, the Court of Chancery expressed confidence in stating that Delaware is a “pro-sandbagging state” for purposes of allowing a buyer to bring claims for breach of contractual representations in an agreement against a seller of a business even if the buyer were aware of the claim prior to closing–and at the time that the buyer signed the agreement of sale.

This decision is consequential and noteworthy for the foregoing highlights alone, but there are also other notable aspects of this 113-page opinion that make it worth reading in its entirety.  For purposes of this short blog post, I will only provide a few bullet points.

Additional Selected Highlights

• The Court defined sandbagging as referring colloquially to “the practice of asserting a claim based on a representation despite having had reason to suspect it was inaccurate.” See footnote 267 and related text.  The Court also explained sandbagging as “generally understood to mean to misrepresent or conceal one’s true intent, position, or potential in order to take advantage of an opponent.”  See Slip op. at 71.  See also footnotes 270-274 and accompanying text describing the etymology of the word and public policy issues implicated by the Court’s position.
• The Court also observed that the parties are free to draft contract provisions to avoid sandbagging claims. See footnote 290 and accompanying text.
• This ruling also instructed that a fraud claim in Delaware is the same as a claim for fraudulent inducement. Slip op. at 50.
• In this lengthy opinion the Court chronicles in much detail the history of the deal from the first meeting of the buyer and seller through various iterations of the letter of intent, as well as through the extraordinary and unfettered access given to the buyer during the due diligence period (that helped to defeat a fraud claim),  and that may serve as a cautionary tale for drafters of agreements of sale.
• This decision also features extensive analysis and commentary regarding the competing expert reports on damages, and why the Court relied more on one expert as compared to the other.