Corporate Law Overhaul Sails Through Contentious Bar Meeting

A proposed corporate law overhaul that’s bitterly dividing the country’s top deal lawyers easily cleared its first hurdle Monday, when an influential committee voted to have Delaware’s bar association recommend the changes to lawmakers.

State Senate Bill 21 passed the Corporation Law Section by a 160-57 vote after a contentious, roughly hour-long meeting. The bill would lower judge-made guardrails around insider deals, restrict investor access to the texts and emails of company leaders they’re planning to sue, and strengthen a presumption that board members are independent of one another.

The fast-tracked legislation is aimed at heading off a potential wave ...