Board Diversity Discussion

Troutman Pepper Podcasts

With a hot national spotlight on issues of racial diversity, equality, and inclusion, the composition of corporate boards of directors faces increased scrutiny from the American public, legislators, and the plaintiffs’ bar. The plaintiffs’ bar fired its first shot in July 2020 with a shareholder derivative complaint against the board of a Fortune 100 company, claiming that the directors allegedly breached their fiduciary duties by failing to include diverse directors on their board, despite statements of commitment to diversity, equality, and inclusion. Additional derivative lawsuits against the boards of several public companies that allegedly lack any racially diverse directors quickly followed, and more are likely to come. As a brief follow up to the October 21 article “A New Wave of Board Diversity Derivative Litigation,” this podcast with Troutman Pepper attorneys Pam Palmer, Howard Privette and Alex Peurach, takes only 10 minutes to expand upon the theories asserted in these new board-diversity derivative actions, analyze potential problems for plaintiffs in sustaining the claims, and provide additional guidance on how to respond to a shareholder demand to take action to address diversity and inclusion.