Victory for Warburg Pincus Partners in Fiduciary Duty Litigation

On June 19, 2008, the Delaware Chancery Court granted summary judgment in favor of two Warburg Pincus partners who were accused of breaching their fiduciary duties to the shareholders of Transkaryotic Therapies, Inc. (“TKT”), in which Warburg Pincus held an approximately 15% interest. Plaintiffs claimed, among other things, that the two Warburg Pincus partners engineered an acquisition of TKT by Shire Pharmaceuticals Group plc at an unfairly low price. Chancellor William B. Chandler, III held that there were no issues of material fact to support a finding that the Warburg Pincus partners had acted disloyally to TKT or otherwise breached their fiduciary duties.

The Firm lawyers were partners Robert H. Baron and Gary A. Bornstein and associates David C. Armillei, Craig Batchelor, Katherine A. Deringer and Benjamin D. Brutlag. The case is In re Transkaryotic Therapies, Inc., No. 2776-CC (Del. Ch. June 19, 2008).