Opinion ID: 1541285
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Conduct of the Stockholder Meeting

Text: Plaintiff asserts that the trial court erred in dismissing his disclosure claims pertaining to the conduct of the stockholder meeting, pointing to the autocratic and authoritarian manner in which Chairman Andreas ran the meeting and refused to answer stockholder questions. The claim is that this conduct was tantamount to a disclosure violation and constituted stockholder disenfranchisement. This is a rather far-fetched contention. The trial court correctly held that the complaint does not properly allege that ADM failed to disclose that, as a result of Andreas' draconian handling of the stockholder meeting, a violation occurred. Further, the trial court correctly concluded that the complaint furnishes no support for the notion that stockholders at an annual meeting have a right to ask questions independent of their right to full disclosure. Plaintiff argues that the conduct of Andreas made a sham of the meeting and eviscerated a meaningful exercise of the stockholder franchise. Plaintiff's allegation is couched in terms of a disclosure breach [43] rather than a disenfranchisement claim. [44] The issue is whether or not the disclosures provided to stockholders in ADM's disclosure materials were materially misleading, not how the stockholders' meeting was conducted. For the complaint to survive a motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 12(b)(6), it must provide some plausible connection, consistent with the standards set forth in this opinion, between the disclosures ex ante and Mr. Andreas' ex post conduct of the stockholder meeting. [45]