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California And Vice Chancellor Laster Are 180˚ Apart On The "Circle Of Confidentiality"
Thursday, April 27, 2023

In Hyde Park Venture Partners Fund III, L.P. v. FairXchange, LLC,  2023 WL 2417273 (Del. Ch. Mar. 9, 2023), Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster ruled that two investment funds were within the "circle of confidentiality" that encompassed the corporation and a director selected by those funds.  Accordingly, the corporation could not invoke the attorney-client privilege to withhold materials created during the director's tenure on the corporation's board.  

The "circle of confidentiality" may not be as encompassing here in California.  Coley v. Eskaton, 51 Cal. App. 5th 943 (2020) involved disclosures by a member of the board of directors of a nonprofit mutual benefit corporation.   A controlling member elected the director.  The trial court found, and the Court of Appeal agreed,  that the director had breached his fiduciary duties by disclosing privileged information to the director's counsel and the member's counsel.   The Court of Appeal appears to have assumed that the corporation was damaged by the disclosure, but it does not explicate how.  

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