The Institute for Law & Economics (ILE) hosts the online Delaware Corporation Law Resource Center with DGCL materials and oral histories of landmark cases.
This year marks the 125th anniversary of the Delaware General Corporation Law—the famous corporate statute known as the “DGCL.” The statute was adopted during a period of national transition from a system of special chartering by state legislative action to general corporation laws, allowing corporations to be formed by filing a certificate of incorporation. The move to general corporation laws facilitated greater access to the corporate form and contributed to its meteoric rise in the twentieth century.
The Institute for Law & Economics (ILE) hosts the online Delaware Corporation Law Resource Center with DGCL materials and oral histories of landmark cases that provide a treasure trove for practitioners, students, academics, and others around the world. Spearheaded by Larry Hamermesh and the late Michael Wachter, William B. and Mary Barb Johnson Professor of Law and Economics, Emeritus, with generous support from contributors, the site has become one of the most well-known resources in the corporate law field.
In celebration of the 125th anniversary of the DGCL, ILE has launched an update to its Resource Center. Through the remarkable efforts of corporate practitioner Nate Emeritz, in the Delaware office of Greenberg Traurig, LLP, the Resource Center now features access to the historic statute from 1899 as well as its amendments through 1967, when the DGCL’s modern format took shape. This expansion completes the DGCL amendments hosted online to provide easy public access to the full history from 1899 to today.
Notably, these historic materials can contribute to deeper understanding of the development of corporate law. Delaware’s general corporation law was modeled on New Jersey’s general corporation law of 1896, though Delaware immediately sought to compete for corporate charters on the basis that its drafting committee of corporate lawyers had codified improvements as to key statutory concepts. After enactment of the DGCL in 1899, the Delaware General Assembly adopted the practice of revising the general corporation law approximately every other year beginning in 1901, and extensive revision processes supplemented the regular amendments in 1915, 1935, 1953, and 1967.
“I’m excited to contribute to the valuable work by Larry Hamermesh and the ILE team,” said Emeritz. “This compilation of pre-1967 legislative materials is intended to shed additional light on the foundations and early evolution of the DGCL and Delaware’s position as a home for corporate law.”
Hamermesh added, “Nate has contributed an important addition to the Resource Center. Much of Delaware’s formative corporate case law reflects a dialogue with developments of the DGCL, and those developments are now for the first time easily accessible online.”
Original source can be found here.