In a pair of influential decisions this year, the Delaware Supreme Court has highlighted a judicial tug-of-war when it comes to issues of personal jurisdiction, interpreting state statutes to expand the basis to sue directors and officers on one hand and to limit the reach of state courts over foreign corporations on the other.
In Hazout v. Tsang, the high court in February upended about 35 years of statutory interpretation by reading back into Delaware’s consent statute the “necessary and proper” phrase, which had been eschewed decades ago over due process concerns.
