Mark Felger, co-chair of Cozen O’Connor’s Bankruptcy, Insolvency & Restructuring Practice Group, and Barry Klayman, a member of the firm’s Bankruptcy, Insolvency & Restructuring Practice Group, discuss a recent case from the Delaware Court of Chancery in The Delaware Business Court Insider. Mark and Barry previously discussed the case, Agar v. Judy¸ for its holding that directors are public figures for the limited purpose of election-related communications among investors. In this article, they discuss another aspect of the Agar decision that Delaware’s anti-SLAPP statute is to be construed narrowly so as to be applicable only to public petition and participation in land use proceedings and is not a broad legal protection against defamation claims. Mark and Barry note that, “Agar gives the Delaware anti-SLAPP statute a narrow reading, and confirms that it is not to be interpreted as a general protection for ‘Speech Clause’ activities unrelated to land use disputes.” They add that, “Agar is one of the rare decisions in which the court could consider the legislative history, including floor debates in the General Assembly, in construing a Delaware statute.”
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