dismiss on June 19, 2019. At the oral arguments, the Court ordered the parties to submit supplemental letter briefs on the motion to dismiss.
On October 1, 2019, Vice Chancellor Joseph R. Slights III of the Delaware Chancery Court, issued a Memorandum Opinion granting in part and denying in part defendants’ motions to dismiss. The Supplemental Derivative Complaint was dismissed as to Plaintiffs’ derivative claims for unjust enrichment and insider trading. The Court allowed Plaintiffs’ remaining derivative claim for breach of fiduciary duty to proceed. Defendants filed an answer to the Supplemental Derivative Complaint on December 27, 2019.
On December 17, 2019, the parties participated in a mediation, which did not result in a settlement. On December 22, 2019, the Company’s board of directors formed a Special Litigation Committee (the “SLC”) to conduct an investigation of the claims asserted in the Supplemental Derivative Complaint. On February 18, 2020, the SLC moved to stay all proceedings in the Consolidated Derivative Action pending completion of its investigation. Plaintiffs filed their opposition to the motion to stay on March 3, 2020 and the SLC filed its reply on March 13, 2020. On May 12, 2020, after hearing oral argument, Vice Chancellor Slights granted the SLC’s motion to stay proceedings until September 18, 2020 so that the SLC may complete its investigation.
While the SLC’s investigation remains ongoing, the Company does not believe this litigation will have a material impact on its financial position or results of operations.
On March 20, 2017, a purported shareholder of the Company, filed a shareholder derivative complaint (the “Guo Complaint”) against certain officers and directors of the Company in the United States District Court for the District of Colorado. The Guo Complaint generally alleged that the defendants breached their fiduciary duties owed to the Company by either recklessly or with gross negligence approving or permitting misrepresentations of the Company’s business operations and prospects. The Guo Complaint also alleged claims for waste of corporate assets and unjust enrichment. Finally, the Guo Complaint alleged that certain of the individual defendants violated Section 14(a) of the Securities Exchange Act, by allegedly negligently issuing, causing to be issued, and participating in the issuance of materially misleading statements to stockholders in the Company’s Proxy Statement on Schedule DEF 14A in connection with the 2015 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, held on June 11, 2015. The Guo Complaint sought, among other things, an award of money damages.
On June 19, 2017, the parties filed a joint motion to stay the Guo action pending resolution of the motion to dismiss the Consolidated Derivative Complaint. On June 20, 2017, the court granted the motion to stay. Based on the October 1, 2019 ruling in the Consolidated Derivative Action, on October 22, 2019, the court lifted the stay. The parties participated in a scheduling conference on December 9, 2019, following which the court set the dates for pre-trial conference and trial for March 2, 2021 and March 29, 2021, respectively. On December 23, 2019, the plaintiff filed an amended complaint, and on February 7, 2020, the plaintiff filed a second amended complaint. On February 28, 2020, the defendants moved to dismiss the second amended Guo complaint. The plaintiff filed an opposition to the motion to dismiss on March 20, 2020 and the defendants filed their reply on April 3, 2020.
The Company intends to vigorously defend against the allegations in the second amended Guo complaint, but there can be no assurance that the defense will be successful.
European Patent Opposition
Oppositions were filed in the granted European counterparts of 2 patents in the rucaparib camsylate salt/polymorph patent family. An opposition of European patent 2534153 was filed by 2 opponents on June 20, 2017. The European Patent Office’s Opposition Division held an oral hearing on December 4, 2018, during which it upheld claims, narrowed from the originally granted patent, to certain crystalline forms of rucaparib camsylate, including, but not limited to, rucaparib S-camsylate Form A, the crystalline form in Rubraca. Clovis and 1 opponent, Hexal, appealed the written decision of the European Opposition Division and filed reply appeal briefs in early November 2019. An opposition of European patent 3150610, a divisional patent of European patent 2534153, was filed on April 30, 2020. The divisional patent includes claims directed to use of rucaparib in a method of inhibiting PARP activity or treating cancer. The grounds of opposition for the divisional patent were lack of novelty, lack of inventive step, added subject matter, and insufficient disclosure – similar grounds on which the parent patent was opposed. It is common for an opponent to raise these grounds in an opposition. During examination, the European Patent Office considers all of these grounds and considered the application to comply with the applicable law when granting the patent. In particular, the