Tomran, Inc. v. Passano

891 A.2d 336, 391 Md. 1, 2006 Md. LEXIS 60
CourtCourt of Appeals of Maryland
DecidedFebruary 6, 2006
Docket3, September Term, 2005
StatusPublished
Cited by36 cases

This text of 891 A.2d 336 (Tomran, Inc. v. Passano) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Maryland primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Tomran, Inc. v. Passano, 891 A.2d 336, 391 Md. 1, 2006 Md. LEXIS 60 (Md. 2006).

Opinions

BATTAGLIA, J.

This case arises out of one of the Allfirst Bank scandals and presents this Court with issues of procedure, contractual interpretation, and the application of Irish law. Specifically, Petitioner, Tomran Inc. (“Tomran”), has requested that this [4]*4Court review the Court of Special Appeals’ affirmance of the Circuit Court’s dismissal of the first amended complaint, including its findings that the choice of law clause in the Deposit Agreement did not govern the institution of shareholder derivative suits, that Irish law would not recognize Tomran’s cause of action, and that the Circuit Court did not abuse its discretion in denying Tomran’s post-judgment motion to further amend the complaint. We shall affirm.

Factual and Procedural History

Allied Irish Bank (“AIB”) is a company incorporated under the laws of Ireland that is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. AIB wholly owned Allfirst Financial, a Delaware corporation with its headquarters in Baltimore, which in turn was the sole owner of several subsidiaries, including Allfirst Bank, a financial institution with its principal place of business in Baltimore.

On February 6, 2002, Allfirst Bank revealed that it had discovered that a foreign currency trader in its employ, John Rusnak, had systematically falsified bank records and other documents accruing losses from non-existent option contracts and recording illusory premiums from them as profits. This caused Allfirst Bank to revise its earnings downward by nearly $700 million.

Tomran, Inc., a Maryland corporation based in Jarrettsville, is a depositor in Allfirst Bank and holder of American Depositary Receipts (“ADRs”) of stock in AIB worth over $100,000. ADRs have been succinctly defined by the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Pinker v. Roche Holdings Ltd., 292 F.3d 361 (3d Cir.2002):

An ADR is a receipt that is issued by a depositary bank that represents a specified amount of a foreign security that has been deposited with a foreign branch or agent of the depositary, known as the custodian. The holder of an ADR is not the title owner of the underlying shares; the title owner of the underlying shares is either the depositary, the custodian, or their agent. ADRs are tradeable in the same manner as any other registered American security, may be [5]*5listed on any of the major exchanges in the United States or traded over the counter, and are subject to the Securities Act and the Exchange Act. This makes trading an ADR simpler and more secure for American investors than trading in the underlying security in the foreign market.
ADRs may be either sponsored or unsponsored. An unsponsored ADR is established with little or no involvement of the issuer of the underlying security. A sponsored ADR, in contrast, is established with the active participation of the issuer of the underlying security. An issuer who sponsors an ADR enters into an agreement with the depositary bank and the ADR owners. The agreement establishes the rights and obligations of the parties, such as ADR holders’ voting rights.

Id. at 367 (citations omitted).

After Allfirst Bank announced its earnings restatement resulting from the Rusnak fraud, Tomran made a demand on the boards of directors of AIB and Allfirst Bank that they take action to recoup the losses. The boards denied Tomran’s demand.

On May 13, 2002, Tomran filed a derivative suit for money damages and declaratory and injunctive relief against the directors and senior officers of Allfirst Bank and nominal defendants, AIB, Allfirst Bank, and Allfirst Financial.1 On August 14, 2002, Tomran amended its complaint to state the [6]*6action as a “triple derivative” suit.2 The amended complaint alleged that Respondents were negligent and grossly negligent in their oversight of Rusnak’s foreign currency dealings, which directly caused the loss to Allfirst Bank.3 In its amended complaint, Tomran argued that, as a result of the change in the charter, the officers and directors of Allfirst Bank were no longer “personally liable to the Bank or its shareholders for money damages.”4 Thus, Tomran sought a declaratory judgment “confirming that the change in the Bank’s articles was [7]*7not retroactive and did not cover the $40 million in losses already in place as of December 1998.” It also sought to enjoin Respondents “from asserting that their liability to the Bank [was] limited in any fashion by the December 1998 transaction.”

All of the officers and directors filed motions to dismiss on the following grounds: that Tomran had failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted; that Maryland courts did not have jurisdiction over the case; that Tomran had no derivative cause of action; and that Allfirst Bank’s charter barred Tomran’s claims. At the hearing on the motions to dismiss, both parties presented affidavits and deposition testimony from their respective experts on Irish law, Michael Ashe, for the Respondents, and Eoin McCullough, for the Petitioner.

In his December 30, 2002 opinion, Judge Albert J. Matricciani, sitting in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City, determined that the complaint failed to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. Moreover, Judge Matricciani determined that Irish law should apply “in determining the sustainability of [Tomran’s] claims in this case.” He stated:

where the Court has held that the internal affairs [8]*8doctrine[5] does not pose a complete bar to its exercise of jurisdiction over the internal affairs of a foreign corporation, it is unwilling to go farther and ignore the well settled principles that underlie that doctrine and require that the law of the place of incorporation govern the rights and responsibilities of the parties with respect to its internal operations.

The court found that Tomran, to maintain the action, was required to establish: (1) that it is entitled, “as a beneficial owner of AIB shares rather than a registered shareholder,” to bring a derivative suit against AIB; (2) that the amended complaint “set forth allegations sufficient to constitute a ‘fraud on the minority’ exception to the rule in the case of Foss v. Harbottle, [1843] 2 Hare 461, which stands for the general proposition under Irish law that even registered shareholders may not maintain an action on behalf of the company”; and (3) that “Irish law would permit a triple derivative action.”6

With respect to the first requirement, the court found that Tomran could not proceed because no Irish case has permitted a beneficial owner of shares to maintain a derivative suit. As to the second prerequisite, the court determined that “it was unlikely that the bald allegations contained in ... the first amended complaint would satisfy an Irish court that the ‘fraud on the minority’ exception ... has been pled adequately.” The Circuit Court found with respect to the third requirement that there was no authority to suggest that “Ireland is about to permit double or triple derivative actions by even regis[9]

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Bluebook (online)
891 A.2d 336, 391 Md. 1, 2006 Md. LEXIS 60, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tomran-inc-v-passano-md-2006.