FanDuel founders reopen lawsuit against takeover investors

LEGAL

The founders and shareholders of FanDuel will get another chance to hold the company accountable for allegedly cheating them out of proceeds from the business merger with Flutter Entertaiment, the New York Court of Appeals ruled Thursday.

According to Bloomberg the high court agreed with a Manhattan appellate court that Scottish law applies to the shareholders’ claims against FanDuel, since the company was incorporated in Scotland.

However, the appellate court wrongly dismissed the suit in 2022 given that the shareholders raised legitimate breach-of-contract claim. A state appeals court in Manhattan said that the FanDuel shareholders, led by Nigel Eccles, the site’s co-founder and first CEO, failed to make a valid legal claim against the company under the law of Scotland, where FanDuel is incorporated, and ordered the claims dismissed. A five-judge panel of the court said that under Scottish law, directors have fiduciary duties to the company but not to shareholders.

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