The following provision of the statute provides a safe harbor for interested director transactions. If the requirements of the safe harbor are complied with then an interested director transaction will not be void or voidable because of the participation of the director. It may still, however, be subject to attack as a violation of the duty of loyalty and the interested director may be required to prove the entire fairness of the transaction. 

Section 144(a)(1) provides that when a board member's interest is disclosed to or is known by disinterested directors and a majority of the disinterested directors approve the challenged transaction, the board's decision to enter into the transaction will receive the benefit of the §144 safe harbor protection from challenges for voidness and voidability.

Benihana raises a couple of important issues. First, does the disclosure of the director's interest need to be accomplished formally? Or, is it sufficient that the director's interest be common knowledge to the disinterested directors? Second, to the extent a majority of disinterested directors approve the transaction does such an approval provide the interested director and the transaction any additional protection beyond merely protection against the transaction being deemed void or voidable? If a transaction is approved by a majority of disinterested directors who are fully informed about the transaction should that transaction get the protection of the business judgment presumption? 

Section 144 provides alternate methods to insulate interested director transactions from attack for voidness. In addition to seeking the approval of a majority of the disinterested directors, a board can seek the approval of the stockholders. Notice that the statute requires only that the challenged transaction is approved by a majority of the stockholders in order to gain the protection of the statutory safe harbor and not necessarily a majority of disinterested stockholders.

Remember the protections of §144 extend only to the question of void or voidability of an interested director transaction and not further.  One can see how there would be many situations where one might not want stockholder approval of an interested director transaction to do much more than simply rescue a transaction from voidness. Where a controlling stockholder approves a transaction with itself (as a director) we may be okay with that transaction not being void, but we might still want the interested director/stockholder to be required to prove the transaction is nevertheless entirely fair to the corporation.    

The court in the following case, Fliegler, recognizes this problem and makes it clear that for directors who are seeking the additional protection of the business judgment presumption, they would have to do more than just comply with §144(a)(2).  For those directors, they will have to take the additonal step of complying with the requirements of common law stockholder ratification doctrine and seek informed approval of a majority of disinterested stockholders.