M&A계약상 불가침협약과 이사의 신인의무 -미국법상 불가침협약의 준수와 신인의무 위반의 상관관계를 중심으로- = The Target Board`s Fiduciary Duties and Standstill Agreements in M&A Transactions -Focusing on the Interrelationship between the Breach of Fiduciary Duties and the Observation of Standstill Agreements

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Standstill agreements have become a common standard features of the public company sales process but, despite this prevalence, courts and academics have seemed that they have not fully addressed the role of standstills in the sales process or whether they contribute in maximizing shareholder value. That is, despite their functions and advantages, standstill agreements can create a conflict between a target board’s duty to maximize shareholder value in a sale of control, or Revlon duty, and the board’s ability to protect an executed agreement as permitted by the Delaware Supreme Court’s decision in Unocal and its progeny. The conflict is particularly apparent after the target has executed a merger agreement with a winning bidder and a losing bidder makes a higher offer for the target in violation of the standstill agreement. Thus, this article tries to draw a legally and practically reasonable resolution by reviewing and analyzing the U.S. related theories and case laws. In sum, although the Delaware courts have ruled that standstill agreements are not per se inadmissible, the court may consider them invalid, especially when the observance of standstill agreements conflicts with the target board’s Revlon duty. In this context, this article suggests that if deal makers continue using certain standstill agreements, then they should be paired with a fiduciary out and a termination fee so that a bidder bound by such standstill agreements should be able to request a waiver if it can set forth compelling and clearly delineated reasons that it would like to increase its bid. Through this approach, using standstill agreements could be consistent with the precedents as well as the rule of the maximization of shareholder value (Revlon duty). Moreover, in determining whether the target board may consider a third party’s higher offer in contravention of the standstill agreement, we need to consider the purpose of the board’s action under the circumstances of each case. Specifically, the board should articulate a valid value maximization purpose and is not acting to further its own self-interest, be reasonable in its decision-making regarding how many bidders submitted offers and the board considered in pre-signing stage, and the third party’s offer should be a bona fide one grounded with its real intent and ability to close the transaction. As shortly mentioned in Part Ⅰ., the M&A market is expected to extend globally and nationally in Korea in the near future and, thus, the number of M&A contracts that adopt standstill agreements and the number of disputes due to them would increase. Therefore, it is desirable and would provide us with some significant implications in construing and applying Korean law to explore and analyze the U.S. related theories and case laws in order to prepare future disputes in Korea and draw a reasonable conclusion with regard to using those standstill agreements.

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