Tag along rights (TARs) comprise a group of clauses in a
contract
A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between them. A contract typically involves the transfer of goods, services, money, or a promise to tran ...
which together have the effect of allowing the minority shareholder(s) in a corporation to also take part in a sale of
shares
In financial markets, a share is a unit of equity ownership in the capital stock of a corporation, and can refer to units of mutual funds, limited partnerships, and real estate investment trusts. Share capital refers to all of the shares of an ...
by the majority
shareholder
A shareholder (in the United States often referred to as stockholder) of a corporation is an individual or legal entity (such as another corporation, a body politic, a trust or partnership) that is registered by the corporation as the legal own ...
to a third party under the same
terms and conditions
A contractual term is "any provision forming part of a contract". Each term gives rise to a contractual obligation, the breach of which may give rise to litigation. Not all terms are stated expressly and some terms carry less legal gravity as t ...
.
Consider an example: A and B are both shareholders in a company, with A being the majority shareholder and B the minority shareholder. C, a third party, offers to buy A's shares at an attractive price, and A accepts. In this situation, tag-along rights would allow B to also participate in the sale under the same terms and conditions as A.
As with other contractual provisions, tag-along rights originated from the doctrine of
freedom of contract
Freedom of contract is the process in which individuals and groups form contracts without government restrictions. This is opposed to government regulations such as minimum-wage laws, competition laws, economic sanctions, restrictions on pri ...
and is governed by
contract law
A contract is a legally enforceable agreement between two or more parties that creates, defines, and governs mutual rights and obligations between them. A contract typically involves the transfer of goods, services, money, or a promise to tran ...
(in
common law
In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omnipresen ...
countries) or the
law of obligations
The law of obligations is one branch of private law under the civil law legal system and so-called "mixed" legal systems. It is the body of rules that organizes and regulates the rights and duties arising between individuals. The specific rights a ...
(in
civil law countries). As tag-along rights are contractual terms between private parties, they are often found in
venture capital
Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which ha ...
and
private equity
In the field of finance, the term private equity (PE) refers to investment funds, usually limited partnerships (LP), which buy and restructure financially weak companies that produce goods and provide services. A private-equity fund is both a ty ...
firms but not
public companies
A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (list ...
.
Structure
Generally speaking, tag-along rights comprise three devices: the tag-along clause itself, and a method of enforcement, such as a
put option
In finance, a put or put option is a derivative instrument in financial markets that gives the holder (i.e. the purchaser of the put option) the right to sell an asset (the ''underlying''), at a specified price (the ''strike''), by (or at) a s ...
and/or a
penalty clause
Penal damages are liquidated damages which exceed reasonable compensatory damages, making them invalid under common law. While liquidated damage clauses set a pre-agreed value on the expected loss to one party if the other party were to breach th ...
(only applicable in civil law countries as the common law does not uphold penalty clauses).
The tag-along clause itself grants the minority shareholder the right (but not the obligation) to participate in the sale planned by the majority. The majority shareholder must notify all other minority shareholders covered under tag-along provisions and allow them to join in the transaction. If the majority shareholder ignores this obligation, the put option/right to sell provisions engage to enforce the tag-along clause. For instance, if A sells his/her shares to C without including B, the put option would entitle B the right to sell his/her holding to A. A now has a legal obligation to buy B’s shares if B so chooses to exercise his/her put option, which disincentivizes A’s original opportunistic behaviour. In essence, the gist of this mechanism is quite simply “Either you let me out or you stay in”. The possible inclusion of a penalty clause as a premium on top of the put option further disincentivizes opportunistic behaviour because A will now have to buy B’s shares in the company at a higher price than when he/she originally sold his/her stake to C, effectively meaning “Either you let me out or you stay in, with a penalty”.
Purpose
The main purpose of tag-along rights is to protect minority shareholder interests in any transaction. Majority shareholders are usually big firms with many connections, better negotiating power and stronger
capital
Capital may refer to:
Common uses
* Capital city, a municipality of primary status
** List of national capital cities
* Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences
* Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...
, and as such are more likely to be able to find a buyer for their shares. Hence, tag-along rights allow the minority shareholder to increase the
liquidity
Liquidity is a concept in economics involving the convertibility of assets and obligations. It can include:
* Market liquidity, the ease with which an asset can be sold
* Accounting liquidity, the ability to meet cash obligations when due
* Liqui ...
of their shares because he or she will be afforded the opportunity to participate in any deal struck by the majority and prevent them from being “left-behind” in a deal.
Another reason is that when a majority owner sells his or her stake in a business, this dominant position allows the seller to sell at a price higher than the intrinsic price of the share itself, called a
control premium
A control premium is an amount that a buyer is sometimes willing to pay over the current market price of a publicly traded company in order to acquire a controlling share in that company.
If the market perceives that a public company's profit and ...
, because the majority holder possesses a higher degree of freedom to make their decisions for the company. Tag-along rights allow minority holders to also join in this premium and be able to sell their shares at this higher price in any sale between a majority and a third party.
Because tag-along rights are
rights
Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical the ...
and not
obligation
An obligation is a course of action that someone is required to take, whether legal or moral. Obligations are constraints; they limit freedom. People who are under obligations may choose to freely act under obligations. Obligation exists when the ...
s, minority shareholders may or may not choose to exercise them. This allows minority shareholders to have a choice in the event of a majority of the
equity
Equity may refer to:
Finance, accounting and ownership
* Equity (finance), ownership of assets that have liabilities attached to them
** Stock, equity based on original contributions of cash or other value to a business
** Home equity, the dif ...
changing hands. They can elect to either remain an owner of the company or invoke the tag-along rights and participate in the sale.
A downside of tag-along rights is that, because they protect minority interests, the majority shareholder takes on the more onerous task of taking into account the shares of the minority in negotiating a sale, which “may diminish the marketability of the shares”.
[Yakimowski, L., Nordick, K., Maher, D. and Dolan, M.. Buy-Sell Provisions in Shareholder Agreements, (Paper presented to a Saskatchewan Legal Education Society Inc. seminar, 2004. The Law Society of Saskatchewan). https://library.lawsociety.sk.ca/inmagicgenie/documentfolder/ac4297.pdf] There is also uncertainty regarding which minority shareholders will participate in the sale, which could also have an impact on the final purchase price.
The fact that tag-along rights requires tagging shareholders to sell shares "under the same terms and conditions" as the majority shareholders can also be a double-edged sword. This is because in some cases these minority shareholders might want to avoid certain obligations, such as exposure to
indemnity
In contract law, an indemnity is a contractual obligation of one party (the ''indemnitor'') to compensate the loss incurred by another party (the ''indemnitee'') due to the relevant acts of the indemnitor or any other party. The duty to indemni ...
claims relating to the company, that the majority shareholder is beholden to.
Enforceability
![Ecrivains consult - Texte 4 mains](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Ecrivains_consult_-_Texte_4_mains.jpg)
Tag-along rights are a form of contract clause and therefore not enshrined in
statute
A statute is a formal written enactment of a legislative authority that governs the legal entities of a city, state, or country by way of consent. Typically, statutes command or prohibit something, or declare policy. Statutes are rules made by le ...
s. As such, they have to be agreed upon by the parties beforehand in a
shareholders’ agreement.
Unlike a company's
articles of association
In corporate governance, a company's articles of association (AoA, called articles of incorporation in some jurisdictions) is a document which, along with the memorandum of association (in cases where it exists) form the company's constituti ...
, these shareholders’ agreements are not public documents registered to the government, but private dealings between parties. As such, they are not binding on all members of the company, only the participants to the shareholder agreement. This doctrine was made clear in ''Welton v Saffery''
897
__NOTOC__
Year 897 ( DCCCXCVII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar.
Events
By place Europe
* Spring – King Lambert II travels to Rome with his mother, Queen Agelt ...
AC 299, where
Davey LJ held:
“such contracts ..would create personal obligations, or an ''exceptio personalis'' against themselves only, and would not become a regulation of the company, or be binding on the transferees of the parties to it, or upon new or non-assenting shareholders”
In this sense, despite the nomenclature, tag-along rights are found to be
enforceable
An unenforceable contract or transaction is one that is valid but one the court will not enforce. Unenforceable is usually used in contradiction to void (or ''void ab initio'') and voidable. If the parties perform the agreement, it will be valid, ...
in and operate in the same way as any other contractual term, but not as a
right
Rights are law, legal, social, or ethics, ethical principles of Liberty, freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convent ...
in the ordinary sense of the word (e.g.,
right to free speech
Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The rights, right to freedom of expression has been ...
).
Building on the holding from ''Welton'', the
House of Lords
The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the Bicameralism, upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by Life peer, appointment, Hereditary peer, heredity or Lords Spiritual, official function. Like the ...
further held in the landmark case of
''Russell v Northern Bank Development Corp Ltd'' 1 WLR 588">9921 WLR 588 that any agreement that restrains a company’s statutory rights, even when the company itself voluntarily entered into such an agreement, would be held unenforceable.
As with other contractual terms, the exact wording of the tag-along right would also be examined by courts to determine its enforceability. In ''Seidensticker v. Gasparilla Inn, Inc.'', No. 2555-CC, 2007 WL 1930428, the
Delaware Court of Chancery
The Delaware Court of Chancery is a court of equity in the American state of Delaware. It is one of Delaware's three constitutional courts, along with the Supreme Court and Superior Court. Since 2018, the court consists of seven judges. The chi ...
held that tag-along rights are not enforceable if the language of the clause itself does not support such an understanding, regardless of the parties’ intentions in drafting the clause.
Usage
Numerous factors shape the use of tag-along rights.
Types of tag-along rights
There are two main types of tag-along provisions. The first (“full” tag-along right) allows the minority shareholder to sell all of their shares in the event of a transaction between the majority shareholder and a third party. The second (“
pro-rata
''Pro rata'' is an adverb or adjective meaning in equal portions or in proportion. The term is used in many legal and economic contexts. The hyphenated spelling ''pro-rata'' for the adjective form is common, as recommended for adjectives by some E ...
” tag-along right) forces the majority holder to reduce the amount of
equity
Equity may refer to:
Finance, accounting and ownership
* Equity (finance), ownership of assets that have liabilities attached to them
** Stock, equity based on original contributions of cash or other value to a business
** Home equity, the dif ...
it wants to sell and provide the minority an opportunity to also sell their shares on a proportional (pro-rata basis).
Full tag-along rights are usually found in firms where there are few investors and each investor has strong rights, as “contractual rights of investors balance each other and a controlling member, if any, has limited maneuvering room for extracting private benefits”, while the pro-rata option is “the appropriate measure” for firms with many investors who possess weak minority rights.
Notice periods
The period of notice for the exercise of tag-along provisions is also important. Too short a notice period will make it difficult for other shareholders to make an informed decision about whether to participate in the sale, while a period too long will dissuade potential buyers who do not want to comply with such a cumbersome process.
Failure to comply with the period of notice might also render the clause to be unenforceable in court, as ruled in ''Halpin v. Riverstone National, Inc.'', C.A. No. 9796-VCG (the Court in this case dealt with
drag-along right Drag-along right (DAR) is a legal concept in corporate law.
Under the concept, if the majority shareholder(s) of an entity sells their stake, the prospective owner(s) have the right to force the remaining minority shareholders to join the deal. H ...
s, another similar provision, but the overall principle still holds ''
mutatis mutandis
''Mutatis mutandis'' is a Medieval Latin phrase meaning "with things changed that should be changed" or "once the necessary changes have been made". It remains unnaturalized in English and is therefore usually italicized in writing. It is used i ...
''). Since participating shareholders are unable to sell their shares to another potential buyer when an existing sale agreement is still pending, it is necessary to impose a maximum time limit for the completion of a sale.
Substitution of consideration
It might be worth considering situations where it is appropriate for different shareholders to receive alternative forms of
consideration
Consideration is a concept of English common law and is a necessity for simple contracts but not for special contracts (contracts by deed). The concept has been adopted by other common law jurisdictions.
The court in ''Currie v Misa'' declared ...
of equal value other than
cash
In economics, cash is money in the physical form of currency, such as banknotes and coins.
In bookkeeping and financial accounting, cash is current assets comprising currency or currency equivalents that can be accessed immediately or near-imm ...
in a tag-along sale, subject to the negotiations of all parties concerned.
This is important as the original definition of tag-along rights require all participating parties to be subjected under the same terms and conditions, which will have required that the form of consideration to be received by selling shareholders to be uniform across all those parties. For instance, in a standard tag-along sale, the majority and minority shareholders will all be compensated with the same amount of cash per share. However, subject to negotiations between the parties, the third-party purchaser may decide to pay certain shareholders using non-cash forms of consideration (e.g.
securities
A security is a tradable financial asset. The term commonly refers to any form of financial instrument, but its legal definition varies by jurisdiction. In some countries and languages people commonly use the term "security" to refer to any for ...
) while paying others with cash, which would be a violation of the ‘subjected under the same terms and conditions’ provision under standard tag-along rights. Hence, alternative forms of non-cash consideration should be considered and addressed in the shareholders’ agreement beforehand in order to avoid any disputes.
Multiple classes of shares
Some companies have a structure which incorporates
multiple classes of shares (e.g. A, B and C) that entail different rights/obligations regarding dividends, voting power, asset sales, etc… Hence, the value of a share is affected by its share class, sometimes to a great degree (e.g. as of 8 November 2020, a
Berkshire Hathaway
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. () is an American Multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. Its main business and source of capital is insurance, from ...
Class-A share
New York Stock Exchange">NYSE
The New York Stock Exchange (NYSE, nicknamed "The Big Board") is an American stock exchange in the Financial District, Manhattan, Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is by far the List of stock exchanges, world's largest s ...
: BRK-A] is worth $313,885, whereas a Class-B share from the same company [NSYE: BRK-B] is only worth $208.85). As such, in these cases, the provisions that shareholders sell at the “same price” and on the “same terms and conditions” must be carefully considered, taking into account the different share classes and their respective values subject to the rights and obligations afforded by each share class.
Once the transaction is completed, further considerations is warranted towards whether the new owners may convert their newly purchased shares into a single class. This will not only depend upon the wishes of the new shareholders him/herself, but also upon the impact of what such a conversion (or lack thereof) will have on the equilibrium of control amongst the remaining shareholders (who may not be willing to consent to such a decision).
Permitted Transfers
There will occasionally be situations where the transfer of shares should not trigger tag-along provisions, such as when the transfer is not a true sale of shares (e.g. transferring to heirs/other family members).
These special “permitted transfers” would need to be specifically considered in the shareholders’ agreement and be excluded from the operation of tag-along provisions. However, care must be taken to prevent these “permitted transfers” to be used as a circumvention of minority protections, whereby shares are transferred to a newly formed affiliate which is not bound by agreements between current shareholders, allowing this shareholder to subsequently sell these shares with impunity. A method of avoiding this complication is by requiring that any such affiliate to be subjected to the original tag-along rights. Failure to comply with this arrangement will result in the affiliate losing its “permitted transferee” status and having to transfer its newly acquired shares back to the original shareholder.
Compliance with munipical law
Care must be taken to ensure that tag-along provisions do not violate
municipal law
Municipal law is the national, domestic, or internal law of a sovereign state and is defined in opposition to international law. Municipal law includes many levels of law: not only national law but also state, provincial, territorial, regional, ...
, which varies between
jurisdiction
Jurisdiction (from Latin 'law' + 'declaration') is the legal term for the legal authority granted to a legal entity to enact justice. In federations like the United States, areas of jurisdiction apply to local, state, and federal levels.
Jur ...
s. A common obstacle in exercising tag-along rights found in countries like Korea and Japan, where Articles 355 and 204 of their respective Commercial Codes mandate that any transaction of equity has to be approved by the board within 30 days, beyond which point consent is assumed. Another example is found in Brazil, where Article 254-A of Law No.6404 (inserted by Law No. 10303) mandates that the party purchasing a majority stake in a company must not offer the minority holder less than 20% of the price of the offer to the majority holder. In India, the
Supreme Court
A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
held in the decision of ''VB Rangaraj v. VB Gopalakrishnan'' that any restrictions on transferability of shares, even those arising from agreements freely entered into by shareholders on an ''
inter se
''Inter se'' (also styled as ''inter sese'') is a Legal Latin phrase that means " ong or between themselves"., ''Inter se'' 819 (6th Ed.). The phrase is "used to distinguish rights or duties between two or more parties from their rights or duties ...
'' basis, would be considered unenforceable if it violates the company’s article of association.
See also
*
Drag-along right Drag-along right (DAR) is a legal concept in corporate law.
Under the concept, if the majority shareholder(s) of an entity sells their stake, the prospective owner(s) have the right to force the remaining minority shareholders to join the deal. H ...
, the opposite concept
*
Pre-emption right A pre-emption right, right of pre-emption, or first option to buy is a contractual right to acquire certain property newly coming into existence before it can be offered to any other person or entity. It comes from the Latin verb ''emo, emere, emi, ...
*
Right of first refusal
Right of first refusal (ROFR or RFR) is a contractual right that gives its holder the option to enter a business transaction with the owner of something, according to specified terms, before the owner is entitled to enter into that transaction ...
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tag-Along Right
Corporate law
Investment banking
Mergers and acquisitions
Venture capital