August 2011

A recent and controversial decision by the Delaware Chancery Court highlights the need for counsel drafting multiple-member LLC operating agreements to focus attention on whether, and if so the circumstances under which, a member may transfer its membership interest, including economic and voting rights, to another existing member with or without the other members’ consent. Learn more about this important case law development in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
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Continue Reading Avoiding the Pain of Achaian, or How Not to Draft LLC Membership Transfer Provisions

Is the statutory remedy of judicial dissolution available when shareholders fail to implement a prior agreement for a voluntary winding up and dissolution? Nassau County Justice Stephen A. Bucaria answers the question in Matter of Toledano (Home Tower Group, Inc.), featured in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
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Continue Reading Deadlock Over Voluntary Dissolution Agreement Leads to Involuntary Judicial Dissolution

Stock valuation aficionados will not want to miss the report in this week’s New York Business Divorce on the recent decision in Matter of Harlem River Yard Ventures, Inc. It’s a dissenting shareholder case triggered by a squeeze-out merger in which the court was faced with widely disparate expert valuations of a company holding a 99-year lease on the Bronx site of the former Penn Central rail yards, now serving as an industrial park.
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Continue Reading Court Endorses Discounted Cash Flow Method, Rejects Post-Merger Tax Benefits, in Determining Fair Value Award to Dissenting Shareholder

Tax analysis is a critical part of the business divorce attorney’s job when it comes to fashioning a shareholder buy-out agreement that, among other things, protects the selling shareholder from personal income tax liability on non-distributed or “phantom” net income that later may show up on the shareholder’s Schedule K-1. This week’s New York Business Divorce looks at a recent decision by Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Judith Gische in a fight over the tax consequences of a buy-out settlement of a corporate dissolution.
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Continue Reading Beware Taxes on Phantom Income When Entering Into Shareholder Buy-Out Agreement

This week’s New York Business Divorce offers some “summer shorts” consisting of summaries of three recent decisions of interest including two by Justice Carolyn E. Demarest and a split decision by the Appellate Division, First Department.
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Continue Reading Summer Shorts: Stock Sale Under Duress and Other Recent Decisions of Interest