Public Company Update: 2023 DGCL Amendments Now Effective

On August 1, 2023, the Delaware legislature’s most recent amendments to the Delaware General Corporation Law became effective. The amendments include a number of changes designed to simplify pertinent matters for Delaware corporations, particularly those that are publicly traded or are seeking to go public in the future. Significant changes include: reducing the stockholder vote required by public company stockholders to approve an amendment to the certificate of incorporation to implement a reverse stock split or an increase or decrease to the number of authorized shares of a class of stock; enabling corporations to implement a forward stock split (and any necessary proportional increase in authorized stock incident thereto) without stockholder approval; and streamlining the process to ratify defective corporate acts.