Jacob v. Bloom Energy Corp.

The Delaware Chancery Court ordered Bloom Energy Corporation to respond to a stockholder’s demand to inspect the company’s books and records, including documents relating to the company’s clean energy claims and the company’s carbon dioxide emissions. According to the court’s decision, the company manufactures solid-oxide fuel cells that provide an alternative to obtaining energy from the electrical grid, and the company’s primary product is the Bloom Energy Server, which the company promotes as supplying more efficient energy generation with lower greenhouse gas emissions than traditional fossil fuels. After a report published in 2019 concluded that the technology was neither profitable nor clean, the two plaintiffs submitted their demands for inspection. Although the court ruled for the company with respect to one of the plaintiff’s demands, due to failure to comply with statutory requirements for such demands, the court found that the other plaintiff had carried his burden of demonstrating a “proper purpose” for inspection by presenting a credible basis to suspect wrongdoing, including with respect to the company’s representations regarding its product’s environmental benefits.