Shareholders, Fiduciary Duty, Family Businesses

Keeping It in the Family (Trust): Additional Considerations for Contributing S Corp Shares

DarrowEverett LLP on 6/30/2025

A large part of business sucession planning is structuring the transfer of business ownership. While outright transfers can be less complex, transferring ownership in trust can provide practical benefits that are worth...more

Adverse Possession in a Closely Held Company? ‘Stash’ This One Away

DarrowEverett LLP on 5/14/2024

Imagine for a moment that you’re a shareholder in a closely held corporation. In most jurisdictions, that status as a shareholder obligates you to a heightened fiduciary duty to your fellow shareholders. Now imagine that your...more

Risk of Personal Liability Despite Incorporation

Lowenstein Sandler LLP on 1/26/2022

One of the fundamental principles of corporate law is that the owners, directors and officers of a corporate entity generally are not personally responsible for the entity’s debts. Without this insulation from personal...more

Business Divorce Nation: A Cross-Country Tour of Recent Decisions of Interest

Farrell Fritz, P.C. on 9/14/2020

There’s tremendous diversity from state-to-state when it comes to statutory and judge-made law in business divorce cases. The basic fact patterns one sees in cases from across the country, however, don’t vary nearly as much....more

Introducing DWT’s Guide to Governance

Davis Wright Tremaine LLP on 10/29/2018

Businesses and the families that own them are each “governed” by a structure and set of rules. Often, that structure is informal and the rules unwritten, vague and inconsistently applied. This creates a virtual breeding...more

Minority Shareholders Are Fiduciaries Too

Holland & Hart LLP on 10/16/2018

Often, a closely-held company comprises a large portion of a person’s wealth. In some instances, the company initially generated much of the person’s wealth. And in others, the company is formed as a vehicle to pass wealth...more

Defining the Role of a Board Chair

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP on 2/22/2017

The prior Family Business Advocates blog post provided an overview of the different legal roles that shareholders, directors, and officers play in the intersection of ownership and management of a company, but how does a...more

Shareholders › Fiduciary Duty › Family Businesses