Citation.
Marchand v. Barnhill - 212 A.3d 805 (Del. 2019)
Rule.
Under In re Caremark Int'l Inc. Derivative Litig. and the Supreme Court of Delaware's opinion in Stone v. Ritter, directors have a duty to exercise oversight and to monitor the corporation's operational viability, legal compliance, and financial performance. A board's utter failure to attempt to assure a reasonable information and reporting system exists is an act of bad faith in breach of the duty of loyalty.
在关于 Caremark 国际公司衍生诉讼和特拉华州最高法院在 Stone v. Ritter 案中的观点，董事有义务对公司的有效运行、法律合规和财务绩效进行监督和管理。董事会完全未能试图保证合理信息和报告系统的存在，属于违反忠实义务的不诚信行为。
Facts.
Blue Bell Creameries USA, Inc., one of the country's largest ice cream manufacturers, suffered a listeria outbreak in early 2015, causing the company to recall all of its products, shut down production at all of its plants, and lay off over a third of its workforce. Blue Bell's failure to contain listeria's spread in its manufacturing plants caused listeria to be present in its products and had sad consequences. Three people died as a result of the listeria outbreak. Less consequentially, but nonetheless important for this litigation, stockholders also suffered losses because, after the operational shutdown, Blue Bell suffered a liquidity crisis that forced it to accept a dilutive private equity investment. Based on these unfortunate events, a stockholder brought a derivative suit against two key executives and against Blue Bell's directors claiming breaches of the defendants' fiduciary duties. The complaint alleges that the executives—Paul Kruse, the President and CEO, and Greg Bridges, the Vice President of Operations—breached their duties of care and loyalty by knowingly disregarding contamination risks and failing to oversee the safety of Blue Bell's food-making operations, and that the directors breached their duty of loyalty under Caremark.
美国 Blue Bell 奶油公司是美国最大的冰淇淋制造商之一。2015 年初，李斯特菌疫情的爆发使得公司召回其产品，全部生产车间停工，并且裁员人数超过总员工人数的1/3。Blue Bell 未能有效遏制李斯特菌在其生产车间中的传播，导致李斯特菌出现在其产品中，并产生了令人遗憾的结果。三人死于李斯特菌的疫情。虽然后果并非极其严重，但对这场诉讼仍然很重要，股东也因此蒙受损失。在业务关停之后，Blue Bell 遭遇了流动性危机，迫使其接收将稀释每股收益的私募股权投资。基于这些不幸的事件，一位股东对两名重要管理人员和 Blue Bell 的董事提起了派生诉讼，声称他们违反了信义义务。起诉状称担任公司总裁和首席执行官的 Paul Kruse 和担任运营副总裁的 Greg Bridges 故意无视污染风险，未能监督 Blue Bell 的食品生产安全，违反了注意义务和忠实义务；公司的董事违反了由 Caremark 案* 所确立的忠实义务。
*Caremark 案
In re Caremark International Inc. Derivative Litigation, 698 A.2d 959 (Del. Ch. 1996)
Directors are potentially liable for a breach of duty to exercise appropriate attention if they knew or should have known that employees were violating the law, declined to make a good faith effort to prevent the violation, and the lack of action was the proximate cause of damages.
Issue.
Whether the complaint allege particularized facts that support a reasonable inference that the Blue Bell board failed to implement any system to monitor Blue Bell’s food safety performance or compliance.
起诉状指控的特定事实能否支持这样的合理推论，即 Blue Bell 董事会未能实施任何监管制度以确保食品安全。
Conclusion.
The complaint alleges particularized facts that support a reasonable inference that the Blue Bell board failed to implement any system to monitor Blue Bell's food safety performance or compliance. Under Caremark and this Court's opinion in Stone v. Ritter, directors have a duty "to exercise oversight" and to monitor the corporation's operational viability, legal compliance, and financial performance. A board's "utter failure to attempt to assure a reasonable information and reporting system exists" is an act of bad faith in breach of the duty of loyalty. In sum, the complaint supports an inference that no system of board-level compliance monitoring and reporting existed at Blue Bell. Although Caremark is a tough standard for plaintiffs to meet, the plaintiff has met it here. When a plaintiff can plead an inference that a board has undertaken no efforts to make sure it is informed of a compliance issue intrinsically critical to the company's business operation, then that supports an inference that the board has not made the good faith effort that Caremark requires.
起诉状称，具体的事实支持一个合理的推论，即 Blue Bell 董事会未能实施任何制度以确保食品安全。根据 Caremark 案 和本法院在 Stone v. Ritter 案中的观点，董事有“进行监督”的义务，并监管公司的有效运行、法律合规和财务绩效。董事会“完全未能确保合理的信息和报告制度的存在”，是违反忠实义务的不诚信行为。总之，申告支持这样一种推论，即 Blue Bell 没有董事会一级的合规监测和报告制度。尽管在 Caremark 案中，原告难以达到证明标准，但本案的原告充分证明了前述推论。当原告可以合理推论出董事会没有做出任何努力以确保其知悉公司业务运营至关重要的合规性问题时，则表明该董事会没有达成 Caremark 案所确立的真诚善意尽力的义务标准。
