In re Southern Peru Copper Corp. Shareholder Derivative Litigation

OPINION

STRINE, Chancellor.

I. Introduction

This is the post-trial decision in an entire fairness case. The controlling stockholder of an NYSE-listed mining company came to the corporation’s independent directors with a proposition. How about you buy my non-publicly traded Mexican mining company for approximately $3.1 billion of your NYSE-listed stock? A special committee was set up to “evaluate” this proposal and it retained well-respected legal and financial advisors.

The financial advisor did a great deal of preliminary due diligence, and generated valuations showing that the Mexican mining…