What’s in Your Operating Agreement? Legal Tips for Healthcare Providers
A Counterintuitive Approach to Winning Without Litigation: One-on-One with Haley Morrison
Podcast - Ejecución de facturas electrónicas
Daily Compliance News: July 21, 2025, The More Reasons Not to Go to China Edition
Sunday Book Review: July 20, 2025, The Best Books on Business Edition
RICO Section 1962(b): Acquisition or Maintenance of Control Over Legitimate Enterprises — RICO Report Podcast
Master the First Moves in Litigation for Courtroom Advantage – Speaking of Litigation Video Podcast
Understanding Discovery in Commercial Litigation
Corporate Divorce – Preventing and Managing the Break-Up of a Business Partnership
London Partner Roberta Downey Wired for Disputes: Tech, Infrastructure, and the New Frontier of Risk
Harnessing AI in Litigation: Techniques, Opportunities, and Risks – Speaking of Litigation Video Podcast
Eviction Essentials and Lease Management
New York State Restaurant Reservation Anti-Piracy Act Cracks Down on a "Leech Industry"
Aligning Business Goals with Legal Strategies Amid Regulatory Change – Speaking of Litigation Video Podcast
The Impact of the Horn Case on RICO - RICO Report Podcast
The Litigation Landscape Explained
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?
Understanding Georgia's Civil Justice Climate With Commissioner John King — Regulatory Oversight Podcast
6 Things To Consider Before Litigation
The Spotlight strives to provide a forum to discuss the latest news and compelling issues impacting fiduciaries and those to whom fiduciaries owe duties. Whether you are an officer, director, trustee, beneficiary, trust...more
It is not uncommon in the restaurant business for a restauranteur to partner with a silent-partner investor, i.e. the money guy. It’s not uncommon for the restaurant partners to fight over the control of the restaurant....more
Disputes among members of a limited liability company (LLC) are inevitable. Unlike casual disagreements with friends or roommates, conflicts within an LLC can have legal and financial consequences. Recognizing this reality,...more
Mehra v. Teller, C.A. No. 2019-0812-KSJM (Del. Ch. Sept. 20, 2024) - In this post-trial decision, the plaintiffs claimed that one of the defendants breached his fiduciary duties by failing to distribute assets equally at...more
While entity distinctness is a bedrock principle of corporate law, it may often appear redundant and unnecessary for a limited liability company (“LLC”) to sign its own operating agreement. That was likely the thinking of the...more
Welcome to our 17th annual edition of the Top 10 business divorce cases featured on this blog over the past year. This year’s selections buck the trend of previous years in which cases involving limited liability...more
We frequently see a partner’s “fiduciary duties” expressed as the union of the duty of loyalty and the duty of care. The duty of loyalty requires fiduciaries to avoid elevating the interests of any other person or entity...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
My last few posts have been devoted to the Court of Appeal's opinion in Tuli v. Specialty Surgical Center of Thousand Oaks, LLC, 2024 WL 4499271 (Oct. 16, 2024). The case relates to the plaintiff's "decade-long litigation...more
Texas’ new business court, which the state hopes will make complex litigation more efficient, opens in less than four months. And while there’s still uncertainty about how the court will operate, its structure and the Texas...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
Antero Resources Corp. v. C & R Downhole Drilling, Inc. et al, proves again the extreme risk when one bites the hand that feeds him (shoutout to Greek poet Sappho, 600 BCE). Antero sued former employee Kawsak and his...more
More often than not, the centerpiece of an intra-owner business dispute is a claim that those in control of the business breached their fiduciary duties to the company or the minority owners. While often easy to assert, the...more
In a landmark decision, the Delaware Court of Chancery addressed, for the first time, the precise duties that a controlling stockholder owes, and the standard of review that will apply, when a controlling stockholder takes...more
Parallel business divorce proceedings in the same or different courts alleging overlapping or duplicative claims are common. When it occurs, judges must often determine whether to dispose of one so the other may proceed...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
Misappropriation of corporate opportunity is one of our favorite, most frequently blogged topics on New York Business Divorce. A special kind of breach of fiduciary duty, the corporate opportunity doctrine holds that...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
Do New York’s Surrogate’s Courts have jurisdiction to compel an accounting related to a non-party limited liability company in which the decedent’s estate has only a minority interest? ...more
In the menagerie of closely held companies, those owned and controlled by 50/50 business partners pose unique benefits and challenges. On the benefit side, co-equal ownership and control can foster cooperation,...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
There is arguably no more prevalent legal claim in business divorces than a claim of breach of a fiduciary duty. Simply put (and I do mean simply), when one person owes a fiduciary duty to another, the person with the duty...more
Litigants assert with growing frequency “faithless servant” claims in business divorce cases. New York’s faithless servant doctrine, and the legal standards governing faithless servant claims, emanate from two ancient...more
Business partnerships are built on the trust and loyalty of their participants. Without mutual coordination and honesty among all involved, tensions will inevitably arise that could derail a partnership’s success. The...more