Delaware Corporation Information System Interruption

The Delaware Secretary of State's office will replace its current Delaware Corporation Information System (DCIS) with a new computer system during the upcoming Labor Day weekend.

As part of the implementation, the DCIS will be unavailable for four days beginning on Thursday, September 3, 2015, at 4:30 p.m. EST. All web services – including corporate and UCC filings, document retrievals, and searches – will be unavailable during this period. All priority submissions (30 Minute, Priority 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5) must be received by the state by noon on September 3, 2015.

The state is treating the outage as an "extraordinary event" for corporate filings (it does not apply to UCC filings), meaning that documents received during this period will not be processed until the state reopens on September 8, 2015, but will retain the original filing date. The state will also offer "emergency filing procedures" for a fee of $7,500, but please expect delays processing these requests.

We advise our clients to be mindful of this interruption when considering closing dates and deadlines for upcoming transactions. If you have UCC filings that are scheduled to lapse during the period September 3, 2015 through September 7, 2015, you should continue them prior to the outage to ensure that your lien positions remain in place.

We encourage you to contact us for further information regarding the topics discussed in this alert.