Vice Chancellor Glasscock Approves $167.5 Million “Extraordinary” Derivative Settlement on Behalf of CBS Corporation

September 06, 2023

The Court of Chancery approves the derivative settlement of In re CBS Corporation Stockholder Class Action and Derivative Litigation, Consol. C.A. No. 2020-011-SG (Del. Ch.), in which Prickett Jones obtained a $167.5 million cash payment for CBS Corporation (“CBS”).   The derivative payment was made to settle claims that CBS’s controlling stockholder National Amusements, Inc. and CBS’s directors and officers breached their fiduciary duties by causing CBS to overpay for Viacom Inc. (“Viacom”) in the merger forming ParamountGlobal (f/k/a Paramount).  In approving the settlement, Vice Chancellor Glasscock acknowledged that the litigation was akin to “three-dimensional chess” and the settlement “extraordinary.”

Prickett Jones Directors Michael Hanrahan, Corinne Elise Amato, Kevin Davenport, Eric Juray and Stacey Greenspan litigated the action on behalf the representative institutional plaintiff Cleveland Bakers and Teamsters Pension Fund and nominal defendant CBS.