Stanford Law Professor Michael Klausner toiled in academic obscurity for decades until 2020, when he wrote a paper slamming special purpose acquisition companies as a rip-off of everyday investors.
Now he’s taking his newfound cache to Delaware Chancery Court. He’ll argue in a Friday hearing that blank-check company GigCapital3 Inc. did what SPACs across the industry do—hide from investors how much money they give to insiders through the promise of nearly free shares.
“Somebody’s got to say, I’m paying $10 to invest $5 or $6,” Klausner said in an interview. “If that’s fully disclosed, which I think it should be and will be, there might be” fewer SPACs. “It will be scaled back a lot.”
Klausner’s lawsuits targeting GigCapital3 and two other SPACs highlight potential legal risks for investors, known as sponsors, who launched blank-check vehicles during their recent boom years. He seeks to claw back for ordinary investors the millions of dollars sponsors made in closing deals.
Source: Enemy of the SPAC: Law Professor Takes Deal Sponsors to Court
