Within the next two weeks either InterActiveCorp CEO Barry Diller or Liberty MediaCorp chief will be celebrating a legal victory in their ongoing battle with each other. Today the Delaware Chancery Court judge hearing the trial said that before March 28 he'd rule on whether Barry Diller's proposed breakup of IAC into five independent companies violated his contract with Liberty Media Corp's John Malone.
Malone's Liberty has a majority voting stake in IAC, and has given proxy control of that stake to Diller. Diller's proposal would change the way voting shares are tallied on the new companies, giving Liberty a minority voting stake on the four spun-off companies.
This is still just part of a puzzle--what about the question of whether Diller and the IAC board violated their duties? The answer to that will determine whether Liberty will be able to prevent the spinoffs from happening. First the IAC board will vote on the issue, and then the judge will evaluate whether or not he'll issue a ruling on that.
The next two weeks industry watchers will be eagerly waiting for an update. The fate of IAC stock is certainly at stake. And people are watching Liberty Mediastock as well.
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