A judge in Delaware has approved the settlement of a shareholders’ lawsuit against National City and awarded their attorneys $400,000, a third of what they sought, reported The Plain Dealer. The settlement, which received Delaware Chancery Court Judge William Chandler III’s approval, was negotiated last year between National City and eight investors who sued the bank. The investors had claimed that National City board members breached their duties to shareholders by proposing to sell the Cleveland bank to PNC Financial Services Group of Pittsburgh at a cut-rate price of $5.2 billion. In the deal eventually struck, PNC bought National City for about $5.6 billion. PNC had received $7.7 billion from the U.S. Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, including money that National City might have received had it been included. Under settlement terms, investors dropped their claims in return for the release of more than 400 pages of documents in Delaware State Court, which the bank had been reluctant to disclose.
Judge Approves Settlement of National City Shareholders Suit
Investors had claimed board members breached their duties by proposing to sell the bank at “a cut-rate price.”
August 3, 2009