Corporate Divorce – Preventing and Managing the Break-Up of a Business Partnership
Building and Exiting Business Partnerships
Navigating Corporate Divorce With Michael Einbinder
Episode 23: LLCs as They Approach the 50-Year Milestone: A Conversation with Professor Susan Pace Hamill
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Buy-Sell Agreements: A Conversation With Expert and Author Paul Hood
I Wish I Knew What I Know Now: Conversations with AGG on FDA Issues - Business Divorces in the Food and Supplements Space
Law Brief ®: Alan Gaynor and Richard Schoenstein Explore Business Divorce
Episode 8 | Breaking Up Is Hard To Do: Navigating the Domestic Relations Arena
Episode 021: Member Liquidity, Default Rules, and the Corporate-ization of LLCs: A Conversation with Dean Donald J. Weidner
Episode 17: Arbitrating Deadlock: A Conversation with Arbitrator Erica Garay
Episode 015: Confessions of a Business Appraiser: A Conversation with Chris Mercer
Episode 014: Business Divorce Stories: Business Appraiser Tony Cotrupe and Attorney Jeff Eilender
If your company documents require disputes to be litigated in the Delaware Court of Chancery, you may have to resolve your business divorce without a jury trial, even if California law would otherwise guarantee one....more
Running a restaurant with business partners can be a rewarding venture, but partnerships don’t always go as planned. Disagreements, financial troubles, and breaches of fiduciary duty can create conflicts so severe that...more
Welcome to this 15th annual edition of Summer Shorts. This year’s edition features brief commentary on a trio of recent decisions by New York courts in business divorce cases, all involving LLCs, including: A relatively...more
Indemnification and advancement clauses are often seen as mere boilerplate language in a company’s governing documents, routinely copied from one form agreement to another. However, advancement clauses may be important...more
In addition to blooming trees and longer days, spring in New York has ushered in a fresh crop of noteworthy decisions on intra-LLC disputes. Headliners include a boost to members’ rights to compel an accounting courtesy of...more
In “business divorce” litigation involving LLCs, it is common to see a disgruntled LLC member asserting claims against the LLC’s manager. Depending on the type of harm alleged, those claims might be asserted directly (by the...more
“There is only going to be one winner here, and it’s not going to be you—give in while there is something still left in it for you,” said one LLC member to the other. With co-owners like that, who needs enemies?...more
There’s a ton of Delaware caselaw enforcing Section 18-1101 (c) of that state’s LLC Act as amended in 2004, authorizing LLC agreements to eliminate the members’ and managers’ liability for breach of fiduciary duty, the only...more
In my business divorce practice I deal with many closely held corporations that have only a few or perhaps just two shareholders, each of whom is actively involved in running the business. Within that category are many...more
Some years are easier than others to select the most significant business divorce cases. In this, the 16th year I’ve published this top-10 list, the task is made especially difficult by a veritable flood of court decisions...more
One of the earliest signs that a closely-held business is headed for divorce lies in how its owners treat new opportunities. When the relationship among the owners reaches a certain level of distrust, an owner presented with...more
Nestled between Broadway and Church Street in New York City’s hottest neighborhood is the landmarked, stone-façade building at 66-68 Reade Street. Now marketed as the superluxury boutique condominium complex 66 Reade, the...more
You know you’re in big trouble if the post-trial decision in a lawsuit you filed begins like this: “The court finds the plaintiff, Rowen Seibel, not credible. This is primarily because it appears he fabricated evidence...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
One of the goals in a business divorce is finality – ending a business relationship once and for all. But what if the end isn’t really the end?...more
In Villareal v. Saenz, a district court magistrate judge for the Western District of Texas, San Antonio Division, has recognized that members exiting a limited liability company may continue to hold fiduciary duties despite...more
Managing members of manager-managed New York LLCs owe default fiduciary duties of loyalty and care to non-managing members. Those duties can be modified by the operating agreement....more
In Villareal v. Saenz, two co-owners of a limited liability company sued each other regarding conduct surrounding a business divorce. 5-20-CV-00571-OLG-RBF, 2021 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 94183 (W.D. Tex. May 18, 2021)....more
Last week, Peter Mahler blogged about a recent decision holding that a minority shareholder’s claim against its majority co-owners for breach of fiduciary duty in connection with a sale of the business to a third party...more
Of late I’ve been ruminating on New York’s membership in the shrinking pool of states that don’t recognize oppression of an LLC minority member by the controlling members or managers as ground for judicial dissolution....more
Oral agreements to form and operate business enterprises are a recurring subject of this blog. We’ve written many times, for example, about the comparative ease vis-a-vis other kinds of entities with which one can...more
In 2011 and 2012, the New York Court of Appeals decided a series of difficult cases addressing the circumstances under which a contractual waiver or release included in a buyout or other agreement between co-owners of closely...more
The restaurant business is on the skids amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Yelp reports that 60% of closed restaurants won’t re-open. Apart from the pandemic, the success rate for new restaurants is dauntingly low. Surveys show a...more
The ongoing coronavirus / COVID-19 pandemic has quite literally impacted everyone and everything in New York, including the courts, which were forced to temporarily cease non-essential functions. The result was a short-lived...more