Sunday Book Review: July 20, 2025, The Best Books on Business Edition
Excessive Compensation: What to do when the co-owners of your business pay themselves excessively
Building and Exiting Business Partnerships
When a co-shareholder purchases the debt obligations of the company without partners' knowledge
What happens when a majority owner makes a bad-faith capital call?
Making the Lawyer-Client Relationship Work in Challenging Litigation – Speaking of Litigation Video Podcast
Prelude to the Business Court and 15th Court of Appeals: More Questions Than Answers | Tyler Talbert | Texas Appellate Law Podcast
Navigating Corporate Divorce With Michael Einbinder
Business Courts and Other Highlights of the 88th Texas Legislature | Jerry Bullard | Texas Appellate Law Podcast
Physician Partnership Agreements: Setting Yourself Up for Success
An Inside Look as a Juror - FCRA Focus Podcast
I Wish I Knew What I Know Now: Conversations with AGG on FDA Issues - Business Divorces in the Food and Supplements Space
How can an emergency injunction save your business?
Law Brief ®: Alan Gaynor and Richard Schoenstein Explore Business Divorce
Navigating the LLC Jungle - I Know a Lawyer Podcast
Episode 5: Business Divorce, Delaware Style
CorpCast Episode 7: Better Know a Judge: the Honorable Mary M. Johnston of the Delaware Superior Court
Paths to Dispute Resolution
What is arbitration?
Should any business sign a contract that includes an arbitration clause?
There is perhaps no provision in an LLC operating agreement more susceptible to abuse than one allowing those in control of the LLC to make mandatory capital calls. For one, that authority often comes with very few...more
One of the first business divorce cases that I participated in as a young litigator was a lengthy arbitration over whether a minority shareholder was oppressed under BCL 1104-a. With those fond memories, evolution of the...more
Conflicts between co-owners in private companies are common, but the vast majority are worked out through dialogue and negotiation. When these internal conflicts cannot be resolved, however, minority investors may file suit...more
Occasionally, we come across court cases in which the majority owners so egregiously mistreated their minority co-owners that it’s difficult not to write about it — if only as a lesson in what not to do to separate oneself as...more
Earlier this year, using as a springboard the Maryland intermediate appellate court’s decision in Eastland Food Corp. v Mekhaya, I posted about a topic on which there’s little or no New York law, viz., whether a complaint for...more
Potential client sits down with business divorce lawyer and says, “I’m a minority shareholder in XYZ Corp. I’ve been completely frozen out by the majority. Can you help me?” The lawyer says, “Absolutely. New York law gives...more
There are many ways that an owner of a closely-held business can use their superior financial resources to gain an advantage over their co-owners in a dispute. One common way is the use of a capital call provision to dilute...more
When a minority shareholder petitions for dissolution of a corporation on the grounds of oppressive or illegal conduct (see BCL 1104-a), Section 1118 of New York’s Business Corporation Law allows the corporation or any other...more
When shareholders of a company believe the leaders of the company have breached their fiduciary duties to it, they can bring a lawsuit against those leaders in one of two ways. Shareholders can bring the suit in their own...more
In 1950, Sam Hoffman and his two sons, Hyman and Melvin, founded Brooklyn-based Cornell Beverages, Inc. to manufacture and distribute seltzer. Those were the days when “seltzer men” made weekly home deliveries of cases of...more
I can’t say what the number is, but my own experience tells me that a significant percentage of lawsuits by a minority owner of a closely-held company against those in control of the company include a demand for an...more
David F. Johnson presented his paper “Business Divorce: Minority Shareholder Rights In Texas” to the State Bar of Texas’s Business Disputes Course on September 2-3, 2021. This presentation addressed shareholder oppression...more
The right of shareholders to elect a corporation’s directors is one of the most valuable rights attendant to share ownership. Election of directors is where shareholders can directly exert their influence on the corporation,...more
A minority shareholder petitioning for dissolution under BCL § 1104-a must establish, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the majority shareholders have engaged in “illegal, fraudulent or oppressive actions,” (BCL §...more