Freeze-out transactions have been subject to different standards of judicial review in Delaware since 2001, when the chancery court, in In re Siliconix Inc. Shareholders Litigation, held that, unlike merger freeze-outs, tender offer freeze-outs were not subject to “entire fairness review”....

Historically, Delaware corporate law provided different standards of judicial review for buyouts by controlling shareholders (also known as “freezeouts”) based on what transactional form was used: deferential business judgment review for freezeouts executed as tender offers, and stringent...

Deal protection in M&A deals evolves in response to Delaware case law and the business goals of acquirers and targets. We construct a new sample of M&A deals from 2003 to 2015 to identify four such areas of evolution in current transactional practice: (1) termination fee “creep,” which was...