In Re Abbott Laboratories Derivative Shareholders Litigation

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that the Board of Directors had knowledge of potential misconduct where “formal certified” warning letters were sent from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration directly to the Board
• explaining that a derivative action is a particular type of action in which “an individual shareholder seeks to enforce a right that belongs to the corporation”
• noting board of directors held 31 meetings during relevant period, during which directors presumably discussed FDA compliance issues
• excusing demand and emphasizing that even though two FDA warning letters contained mere “boilerplate” language, “continuing violations of federal regulations over a period of six years cannot be minimized”
• facts raised inference of conscious disregard of duties when FDA met with company representatives at least ten times concerning continuing violations
• “Where there is a corporate governance structure in place, we must then assume the corporate governance procedures were followed and that the board knew of the problems and decided no action was required.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).