This week’s New York Business Divorce highlights two thought-provoking law review articles by Professors Meredith Miller and Ann Lipton making the case for expanding common-law doctrine and legislature remedies for discrimination against women owners of closely held business entities.
Continue Reading It’s Time to Address Sex Discrimination Against Women Owners of Closely Held Companies, Say These Two Law Professors
Corporate Governance
Appellate Rulings Endorse Courts’ Broad Remedial Powers Over Condo and Co-op Board Elections
A pair of significant appellate decisions last week address the courts’ remedial powers concerning co-op and condominium board elections and access to the shareholder list for purposes of campaigning for board seats. Learn more in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
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Look Before You Leap: Buy-Sell Agreements Triggered by a Petition for Dissolution
In a case featuring your authors as counsel for the prevailing parties, NY County Commercial Division Justice Robert Reed enforces the buy-sell provision of a corporation’s shareholders agreement triggered by the shareholders’ petition for dissolution. …
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#MeToo and Business Divorce: The Flip Side
In this week’s New York Business Divorce, read about a recent appeals court decision in which an elderly male business founder alleged he was ousted from the company and his reputation smeared based upon false allegations of sexual harassment allegedly solicited by a hostile male CEO. Do these allegations equate to a viable claim for breach of fiduciary duty against the CEO? Find out in this week’s New York Business Divorce. …
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Stay Away Settlement Between Closely-Held Corporation and Dissident Shareholder Goes Away Upon Shareholder’s Death
A corporation and a dissident shareholder enter into agreement where the dissident shareholder agrees to receive regular payments in exchange for staying away from the Company’s business. What happens when the outspoken shareholder dies? In Stile v C-Air Customhouse Brokers-Forwards, Inc., Index No. 656575/2020 [Sup Ct, New York County 2021], the New York County Supreme Court declined to dismiss a suit by the estate of a shareholder subject to a stay away settlement agreement on the grounds that the stay away obligations did not expressly apply to the shareholder’s successors.
Continue Reading Stay Away Settlement Between Closely-Held Corporation and Dissident Shareholder Goes Away Upon Shareholder’s Death
Stop the Vote: Injunction Halts Shareholders Meeting Pursuant to Courts’ Broad Power to Review Corporate Elections
In a decision of apparent first impression last month, Justice Nancy Bannon of the Manhattan Supreme Court issued an injunction against the holding of a corporate election under BCL § 619. Minority shareholders facing an anticipated election called by a rival majority would be wise to consider the roadmap to injunctive relief charted by the plaintiffs here. …
Continue Reading Stop the Vote: Injunction Halts Shareholders Meeting Pursuant to Courts’ Broad Power to Review Corporate Elections
“Informal Dissolution” and Individual Liability
In this week’s New York Business Divorce, read about the unhappy consequences under the “informal dissolution” doctrine to befall a corporate director who effectuated the liquidation of a defunct corporation’s assets without providing statutory notice of dissolution to the entity’s creditors.
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Business Divorce Epilogues
The New York Business Divorce blog has covered hundreds of cases over the past 11 years. This week’s post revisits three of them, two of which were recently resolved, one of which is still going strong, and all of which made the list of Top Ten business divorce cases in years past. …
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Think Twice Before Putting 100% Quorum Requirement in By-Laws or LLC Agreement
This week’s New York Business Divorce examines an unusual case centering on an atypical quorum provision in an operating agreement requiring the presence of all managers in order to conduct any business.
Continue Reading Think Twice Before Putting 100% Quorum Requirement in By-Laws or LLC Agreement
When Love and Business Fails
The mix of romance and business partnership can prove toxic when one or the other fails, as illustrated in a case recently decided by Queens County Justice Dufficy in Shih v. Kim, highlighted in this week’s New York Business Divorce. …
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