The Delaware Supreme Court is the latest court to weigh in on the increasingly contentious question of whether a foreign corporation’s compliance with a state’s statutory registration requirements amounts to a broad consent to general personal jurisdiction within that state. Writing for the majority in a rare 4-1 split decision, Chief Justice Strine held that it would be “unacceptably grasping” in today’s economy to require foreign corporations to acquiesce to Delaware’s exercise of general jurisdiction as a price of doing business in the state. In so ruling, the Court partially overruled its own decision in
Sternberg v. O’Neil, 550 A.2d 1105 (Del. 1988), which held that registering to do business in the state pursuant to
8 Del. C. § 371 and designating an agent for service of process pursuant to
8 Del. C. § 376 amounted to “actual consent” to Delaware’s exercise of general jurisdiction.
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