Delaware Court Of Chancery Rules In Favor Of Lee Enterprises
Lee Enterprises, Incorporated announced that the Delaware Chancery Court has upheld the decision by Lee’s board of directors to reject the director nomination notice submitted by Alden Global Capital, LLC. In the decision, the vice chancellor noted, among other things, that Lee’s board of directors “acted reasonably in enforcing a validly adopted bylaw with a legitimate corporate purpose” and that Alden “could easily have met the bylaw’s record holder and — by extension — form requirements had it not delayed” in preparing its nomination notice.
As a result of the Court’s ruling, Alden’s director nominations will be disregarded, and no proxies or votes in favor of its purported nominees will be recognized or tabulated at Lee’s 2022 Annual Meeting of Shareholders on March 10.
Lee’s board of directors issued the following statement: “We are pleased that the Delaware Court of Chancery has affirmed the importance of orderly annual shareholder meetings and confirmed the decision by the Lee Board of Directors to reject as invalid the notice of nominations delivered by Alden. Based on the ruling of the Vice Chancellor, Lee will not recognize Alden’s nominations, and any proxies submitted, or votes cast, for the election of Alden’s director candidates will be disregarded. “We urge shareholders to vote FOR all three of Lee’s proposed nominees — Mary E. Junck, Herbert W. Moloney and Kevin D. Mowbray — at our Annual Meeting to support the continued execution of Lee’s digital growth strategy.”
Facebook Agrees To $90 Million Settlement Over ‘Like’ Button Tracking
Facebook has agreed to pay $90 million to settle a lengthy battle over claims that it violated users’ privacy by tracking them via the “Like” button in 2010 and 2011. The settlement agreement allows Facebook users in the United States who visited a site with a “Like” button bewteen April 22, 2010 and September 26, 2011 to file a claim for a portion of the $90 million fund. The deal also calls for Facebook to delete some data about those users. It’s not yet clear how much money individuals who submit claims can expect to receive, according to a representative of the law firm DiCello Levitt Gutzler, which represented the Facebook users. A spokesperson for Facebook parent, Meta, said settling the dispute “is in the best interest of our community and our shareholders,” adding that the company is “glad to move past this issue.”
The lawsuit stemmed from a 2011 report by Australian developer Nic Cubrilovic, who said he discovered that Facebook was able to identify logged-out users when they navigated to sites with the “Like” button. Facebook responded by saying a “bug” allowed the company to receive data about logged-out users. The company also promised to fix the bug, and said it never retained data that tied users’ IDs to the sites they visited. (Facebook subsequently changed its data collection policies, which now allow for some data collection from logged-out users.)
Canada Publishers Want Google And Meta Forced To Pay For News ‘By The End Of June’
The Canadian journalism industry has asked parliamentarians to ensure that they pass laws forcing Google and Meta to pay for news by the end of June. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has already pledged to introduce Australia-style legislation this year, possibly as early as this month.
Speaking before the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Finance on Monday, Paul Deegan, chief executive of News Media Canada, said he is expecting a media bargaining code to be announced by the government “very soon”. He told the committee: “With all political parties in agreement on the overall direction, we are asking you to work with your colleagues to ensure it receives royal assent by the end of June.” Under the Canadian political system, royal assent is the final step a bill must pass before coming into law.
Press Gazette reported in December that Canadian news publishers are anticipating the law could lead to Google and Meta paying them between CA$100-150m a year.
News UK Explores Cashing In On Crypto Boom With Nfts
Rupert Murdoch’s publishing arm is considering making a move into the frothy market of non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, by turning the Times and the Sun’s extensive archive of photos, cartoons and classic front pages into unique digital versions. News UK is in the early stages of evaluating whether the crown jewels among its tens of thousands of physical images, such as exclusive pictures of the Queen, to front pages such as “It’s The Sun Wot Won it!”, to Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster, could be given a lucrative second life as exclusive digital collectibles the public could buy and trade.
Its interest comes as the market for the controversial trading of NFTs, which is viewed by sceptics as a speculative bubble akin to the cryptocurrency craze, grew to an estimated $22bn (£16bn) last year. The possible entry into the world of NFTs, a market that has been questioned by News UK’s own titles, is understood to be driven from the top, with the chief executive, Rebekah Brooks, and the chief operating officer, David Dinsmore, said to be involved.
Daily Clips is a culmination of various articles from an array of news sources on topics spanning from news to tech