Report details settlement trends in Delaware M&A litigation.
The number of settlements in litigation related to mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the Delaware Chancery Court reached 25 last year, its highest level since 2012. However, aggregate settlement amounts declined to $326.6 million, down significantly from the 2023 inflation-adjusted peak of $734.8 million, according to a new Cornerstone Research report released today.
The report, M&A Litigation Settlements in the Delaware Court of Chancery: 2012–2025 Review and Analysis, is based on a hand-collected sample of 143 settlements with known monetary amounts over the 14-year period. It documents a significant drop-off in settlement values in 2025.
The data point to a number of factors behind the declining settlement amounts in 2025, most notably the surge in litigation over SPACs.
In addition to the dip in aggregate settlement amounts, the median settlement in 2025 fell to $10 million, the lowest recorded over the period analyzed. The median settlement amount as a percentage of transaction value also declined, continuing a multi-year downward trend.
“The data point to a number of factors behind the declining settlement amounts in 2025, most notably the surge in litigation over special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs), which tend to involve lower claimed damages,” said Senior Vice President Frank Schneider, a report coauthor and Cohead of Cornerstone’s Valuation, M&A, and Bankruptcy Practice. “Because the SPAC cases at issue tended to involve more modest claims, settlements were smaller. Compounding that trend, settlement values in non-SPAC cases fell as well.”
Larger transactions and transactions with larger claimed damages have on average higher settlement amounts and these relationships are statistically significant.
All 2025 settlement amounts were below $50 million, and 80% were below $20 million. In comparison, only 42% of settlements between 2020 and 2024 were below $20 million.
“Based on the sample of 143 settlements, we observe that larger transactions and transactions with larger claimed damages have on average higher settlement amounts and these relationships are statistically significant,” said Vice President Paul Zurek, Cohead of Cornerstone’s Valuation, M&A, and Bankruptcy Practice and report coauthor.
The report found a strong correlation between claimed damages and settlement outcomes. Claimed damages explain 71% of the variation in settlement amounts, with a 10% increase in damages associated with a 6.4% increase in settlement amount. At the same time, the settlement amount as a percentage of claimed damages tends to decline as the claim size grows, from a 44.0% median for claims under $25 million (2025) to just 2.2% for claims over $1 billion (2020–2024).