PER CURIAM:
Plaintiff NAF Holdings, LLC ("NAF"), appeals from the judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Engelmayer, J.) granting summary judgment in favor of Defendant Li & Fung (Trading) Limited ("Trading"). We assume familiarity with our prior opinion certifying a question to the Delaware Supreme Court, NAF Holdings, LLC v. Li & Fung (Trading) Ltd., 772 F.3d 740 (2d Cir.2014), and the Delaware Court's answer, NAF Holdings, LLC v. Li & Fung (Trading) Ltd., 118 A.3d 175 (Del.2015). We briefly review the pertinent facts.
In 2008, NAF, a Delaware limited liability holding company wholly owned by Efrem Gerszberg, began to pursue acquisition of Hampshire Group, Limited ("Hampshire"), through a tender offer for its stock. In anticipation, NAF entered into a contract with Trading, by which Trading agreed to serve as Hampshire's sourcing agent once NAF acquired Hampshire. After making its contract with Trading, NAF decided to effectuate its acquisition of Hampshire through two newly created subsidiaries, NAF Holdings II LLC ("NAF II"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of NAF, and NAF Acquisition Corp. ("NAF Acquisition"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of NAF II (collectively, "the NAF Subsidiaries"). The NAF Subsidiaries entered into a merger agreement with Hampshire ("Merger Agreement"), to be consummated upon the NAF Subsidiaries' successful acquisition of Hampshire's stock through a tender offer. Trading then allegedly repudiated and refused to perform its contractual obligation to NAF to serve as Hampshire's sourcing agent.
The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Trading on the ground that any injury to NAF resulted from injury to its subsidiaries, so that "any right NAF has to bring suit would therefore be in a derivative, not direct, capacity." NAF Holdings, LLC v. Li & Fung (Trading) Ltd., No. 10 Civ. 5762(PAE), 2013 WL 489020, at *4 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 8, 2013). In so ruling, the district court relied on broad categorical language from Tooley v. Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, Inc., 845 A.2d 1031, 1039 (Del.2004), which, if applied to this claim, would bar direct suit. See NAF Holdings, 2013 WL 489020, at *6 (citing Tooley, 845 A.2d at 1039). The district court further reasoned that NAF was barred from bringing its claim as a derivative action on behalf of the NAF Subsidiaries as a result of a settlement agreement the NAF Subsidiaries and Gerszberg made with Hampshire.
On appeal, we noted significant differences between NAF's claim against Trading for breach of contract and the types of claims in Tooley and its progeny. We concluded that, notwithstanding the broad language of Tooley, the Delaware Supreme Court might find that NAF's contract claim did not fall under the Tooley rule. See NAF Holdings, 772 F.3d at 745. Accordingly, under Second Circuit Local Rule 27.2 and Delaware Supreme Court Rule 41(a)(ii), we certified the following question to the Delaware Supreme Court:
Id. at 750.
In reply, the Delaware Supreme Court ruled that "a party to a commercial contract may sue to enforce its contractual rights directly, without proceeding by way
The district court's further ground for dismissal was that a derivative action on behalf of the NAF Subsidiaries is barred by their Settlement Agreement with Hampshire which forbids the Subsidiaries from bringing a suit arising from the failed merger. Under the Settlement Agreement, the NAF Subsidiaries and Gerszberg (but not NAF) agreed with Hampshire that they would not initiate an action "against any person, whether or not a party to this Settlement Agreement, to recover damages ... or any other losses allegedly sustained as a result of the Transaction Agreements or the Transaction." NAF Holdings, 772 F.3d at 742. The district court's ruling that NAF's suit was precluded by the terms of the Settlement Agreement was premised on its conclusion that this is a derivative suit brought on behalf of the NAF Subsidiaries, which contracted not to sue any other person. That reasoning is no longer applicable in light of the Delaware Supreme Court's clarification that NAF properly brought this suit as its own direct action against Trading.
We remand for consideration of whether the Settlement Agreement bars this direct suit (as well as consideration of Defendant's other two grounds for summary judgment). We note that even if the terms of the Settlement Agreement are interpreted as applying to a suit directly brought by NAF, it is not clear that Trading has standing to enforce Hampshire's contract right to bar this action. From the text of the agreement, it appears that Hampshire negotiated the provision barring suits against other entities for its own protection — to avoid being dragged into another litigation as a third-party defendant. Whether Hampshire intended to make Trading a third-party beneficiary of its contract right is ambiguous.
For the reasons stated above and based on the Delaware Supreme Court's answer to this court's certified question, the judgment of the district court is hereby
NAF Holdings, 772 F.3d at 742.