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Cleaning Up The Corporate Opportunity Doctrine Mess: A First Principles Approach, Yifat Naftali Ben Zion

Washington and Lee Law Review

Almost a century ago, a legal dispute over who is the rightful owner of Pepsi-Cola, at the time an unknown syrup company on the verge of bankruptcy, led the Supreme Court of Delaware to develop what is now famously known as the corporate opportunity doctrine. This doctrine is the central framework Delaware courts use to this day to determine whether an officer who seized a business opportunity has breached his fiduciary duties. Despite the doctrine’s old roots, it has thus far failed to reach stable ground. For one, while many corporate law scholars have supported the rule developed following this …