Delaware Chancery approves $250M Microsoft-Activision shareholder settlement

Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick granted final approval to a $250 million cash settlement resolving a stockholder class action that challenged the terms of Microsoft's $75.4 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, including allegations that the board agreed to a discounted sale price to quell workplace harassment allegations. The court overruled objections from a group of merger arbitrage funds that wanted to preserve a related federal securities suit, and awarded plaintiffs' counsel $60 million in fees. The settlement is funded by insurers and will be paid to former Activision Blizzard shareholders.

Why it matters. The ruling resolves one of the largest Delaware stockholder challenges to a mega-merger and shows how Chancery weighs objections tied to parallel federal securities claims when approving global settlements.