Sovereign and Santander Sued by Relational

As discussed earlier (see here), Sovereign's biggest shareholder, Relational Investors, is against Sovereign's proposed acquisition of Community Bank and equity issuance to Santander.  Sovereign carefully structured the three-way deal to avoid a Sovereign shareholder vote.   Relational asked the NYSE to block the deal, but following some deal revisions, it declined (see here).   Relational has now sued Santander and Sovereign in federal court seeking a declaratory judgment that the deal constitutes a "control transaction” under Pennsylvania corporate law (Sovereign is a PA corp.).  Click here for more details.