Stuart Grant, retired co-founder of Grant & Eisenhofer P.A., and managing director and co-founder of Bench Walk Advisors, is internationally recognized for his extensive knowledge in the areas of Delaware corporate law, fiduciary responsibility, securities and investments, private equity and fixed income, appraisal remedies, valuation, proxy contests and other matters related to protecting and promoting the rights of institutional investors. He has served as litigation counsel to many of the largest public and private institutional investors in the world. As managing director and co-founder of Bench Walk, a litigation finance company, Mr. Grant employs creative solutions for plaintiffs to pursue complex, meritorious cases that may be costly and lengthy to litigate.
Mr. Grant was the first attorney to argue the provisions of the PSLRA allowing an institutional investor to be appointed as sole lead plaintiff and has served as lead counsel in eight of the ten largest settlements in the history of Delaware Chancery Court.
Among his many accolades, Mr. Grant is consistently ranked in Band 1 of Chambers USA as a leading litigator for his work in Delaware Chancery and securities, regulatory and corporate governance litigation. For the past several years, he has been named to Best Lawyers, ranked as a leading lawyer by Legal 500, and selected for inclusion in Super Lawyers. Mr. Grant was repeatedly recognized as one of the Top 500 Leading Lawyers in America by Lawdragon, and in early 2019 was inducted into the Lawdragon 500 Hall of Fame. He is rated AV by Martindale-Hubbell, and is recognized by Benchmark Litigation as one of the Top 100 Trial Lawyers. Additionally, The National Law Journal has selected Grant & Eisenhofer to its list of “Elite Trial Lawyers: The 50 Leading Plaintiffs Firms in America” since the commencement of the list.
Just prior to retiring as G&E’s co-managing director in July 2018, Mr. Grant won a jury verdict on behalf of a whistleblower who exposed a scheme by Overstock.com to avoid reporting and remitting to Delaware millions of dollars in dormant gift cards. Following a five-day trial in Delaware Superior Court, Overstock was found to have violated Delaware’s False Claims and Reporting Act over a four-year period. The aggregate amount of unreported gift card balances was just under $3 million.
Throughout his career, Mr. Grant has first-chaired more nine-figure securities class action and Delaware Chancery Court case resolutions than perhaps any other litigator, including:
- In re Dole Food Co. Stockholder Litigation and In re Dole Food Co. Appraisal Litigation, stockholder class and appraisal litigation victory following a nine-day trial;
- In re Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, Inc. Derivative Litigation, where in a historic first for derivative litigation, the entire cash component of the settlement was distributed to Freeport shareholders in the form of a special dividend;
- City of Roseville Employees’ Retirement System v. Lawrence Ellison, et al. (“Oracle Corp.”), a stockholder derivative suit alleging breach of fiduciary duty;
- In re El Paso Corporation Shareholder Litigation, a settlement resolving allegations that El Paso’s Board of Directors negotiated a merger that was “tainted with disloyalty;”
- In re Refco Inc. Securities Litigation, class action settlement over violations of federal securities laws;
- In re Parmalat Securities Litigation, securities class action in what the SEC described as “one of the largest and most brazen financial frauds in history;”
- Teachers’ Retirement System of Louisiana v. Greenberg, et al. and American International Group, Inc., one of the largest derivative shareholder litigation settlements in the history of Delaware Chancery Court;
- In re Safety-Kleen Securities Corporation Bondholders Litigation, a seven-week securities class action jury trial resulting in judgments holding the company’s CEO and CFO jointly and severally liable;
- In re Digex Stockholders Litigation, the largest settlement in Delaware Chancery Court history, which led to the establishment of lead plaintiff provisions in Delaware.
Mr. Grant has also resolved several class and/or derivative actions, which rank among the largest in the Delaware Chancery Court;
- In re Jefferies Group, Inc. Shareholders Litigation, a fiduciary duty action representing one of the top ten settlements of a post-closing action challenging the fairness of a merger in the history of the Delaware Chancery Court;
- In re Del Monte Foods Company Shareholders Litigation, shareholder litigation resulting in an unprecedented and immediate change in lending policy practices among major investment banks regarding the way the banks approach financing transactions in which they represent the seller;
- In re American International Group, Inc. Consolidated Derivative Litigation, a settlement resolving claims that AIG’s CEO Hank Greenberg and other officers of the insurer were involved in a well-documented bid-rigging scheme used to inflate the company’s income; and
- In re ACS Shareholder Litigation, a settlement resolving allegations that ACS’s Board of Directors breached their fiduciary duties in connection with the negotiated buyout of ACS by Xerox Corp.
Mr. Grant has served as Vice-Chairperson of the Delaware Judicial Nominating Commission, as a member of the Board of Trustees for the University of Delaware, and on the Advisory Board for the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware. Mr. Grant was an Adjunct Professor of Law at the Widener University School of Law from 1994-2009, where he taught securities litigation, and is a past trustee of the Delaware Art Museum.
Mr. Grant has authored a number of articles which have been cited with approval by the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd and 5th Circuits and numerous U.S. District Courts. His articles include, among others, “The Devil is in the Details: Application of the PSLRA’s Proportionate Liability Provisions is so Fraught With Uncertainty That They May be Void for Vagueness”; “Class Certification and Section 18 of the Exchange Act”; “Unisuper v. News Corporation: Affirmation that Shareholders, Not Directors, Are the Ultimate Holders of Corporate Power”; “Executive Compensation: Bridging the Gap Between What Companies Are Required to Disclose and What Stockholders Really Need to Know”; and a number of annual PLI updates under the heading of “Appointment of Lead Plaintiff Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act.”
Mr. Grant was graduated in 1982 cum laude from Brandeis University with a B.A. in economics and received his J.D. from New York University School of Law in 1986. He served as Law Clerk to the Honorable Naomi Reice Buchwald in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Mr. Grant was an associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom (1987-94), and a partner in the Wilmington office of Blank Rome Comisky & McCauley from 1994 until forming Grant & Eisenhofer P.A. in 1997.
In addition to his legal work, Mr. Grant is an owner and breeder of thoroughbred race horses. Mr. Grant’s horses race under the stable name The Elkstone Group and often train at Camden Training Center.
Mr. Grant also devotes his time to philanthropic endeavors. Mr. Grant and his wife, Suzanne B. Grant, formed the I Could Do Great Things Foundation in 2009 to support a range of social initiatives related to education and projects that strengthen communities in Delaware where the couple are primarily based.