Shareholder derivative litigation is often critiqued as costly to firms Special litigation committees have been devised as a means to dismiss low-value lawsuits and reduce unwanted litigation. This article presents a formal model which operationalizes the most common critiques of shareholder derivative litigation including meritless suits, value-decreasing suits, and self-interested plaintiffs’ attorneys who do not internalize the costs of litigation. Within this framework, allowing even an unbiased special litigation committee with superior information about suit quality to dismiss litigation may nevertheless decrease the value of the firm because it undercuts the firm’s ability to commit ex ante to an aggressive litigation stance regarding fiduciary breaches. Whether this is the case turns on firm-specific variables, such as transparency, the risk of management distraction caused by litigation, and sensitivity to small-scale managerial malfeasance, suggesting that a private-ordering approach to derivative litigation may be desirable.

中文翻译：

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股东衍生诉讼中的信息与威慑

股东派生诉讼经常被批评为对公司来说代价高昂，特别诉讼委员会已被设计为驳回低价值诉讼和减少不必要诉讼的一种手段。本文提出了一个正式的模型，该模型将最常见的股东派生诉讼批评付诸实践，包括无价值诉讼、贬值诉讼以及不内化诉讼成本的自利原告律师。在这个框架内，即使是一个在诉讼质量方面拥有丰富信息的公正的特别诉讼委员会也可以驳回诉讼，但可能会降低公司的价值，因为这会削弱公司事前就信托违约采取激进诉讼立场的能力。情况是否如此取决于公司特定的变量，例如透明度，