The tiny state of Delaware plays an enormous role in this country’s corporate life. Delaware has long been the overwhelmingly preferred state of incorporation for publicly owned companies, and its cutting-edge (many would also say pro-management) enabling acts for closely held business entities have made it an exporter to the other 49 states of countless privately owned corporations, limited partnerships, and limited liability companies that have no connection to Delaware other than their state of formation.
The Delaware judicial system serves an integral role in maintaining the state’s corporate hegemony. The Delaware Court of Chancery is widely viewed as the country’s preeminent business-law trial court by virtue of its broad jurisdiction over Delaware business entities both public and private, and thanks to a judicial selection process that promotes the best and brightest candidates for the court’s judgeships including one Chancellor and four Vice-Chancellors whose typically thorough and scholarly written opinions are closely followed by lawyers and judges throughout the country.
Business divorce practice nationwide is no less susceptible to the influence of the Delaware legislative and judicial juggernaut. In New York, as in other states that are home to many Delaware-formed business entities, the internal affairs doctrine mandates application of Delaware law to disputes among entity co-owners, and jurisdictional constraints require owners seeking the ultimate remedy of judicial dissolution to do so in the Delaware Chancery Court. The Chancery Court’s interpretation of Delaware business entity statutes governing internal relations among co-owners of closely held business entities also has had significant influence over the interpretation of counterpart statutes in other states by their judiciaries. (A prominent example of this is the Second Department’s 2010 decision in the 1545 Ocean Avenue case which drew heavily upon Delaware Chancery Court precedent in setting the standard for judicial dissolution of LLCs under Section 702 of New York’s LLC Law.)
All of which is why I’m excited to invite readers to listen to my most recent podcast episode on the Business Divorce Roundtable entitled “Business Divorce, Delaware Style” featuring my interview of two leading Delaware litigators — Kurt Heyman (photo left) and Pete Ladig (photo right) — talking about what it’s like to litigate business divorce cases in the Chancery Court and current developments in Delaware law affecting such cases including important decisions I’ve written about on this blog in the TransPerfect, Carlisle, and Meyer cases.
Click on the link at the bottom of this post to hear the interview.
Kurt Heyman is a founding partner of Proctor Heyman Enerio LLP in Wilmington, Delaware, where he focuses his practice on corporate governance, partnership and limited liability company disputes in the Delaware Court of Chancery. Kurt lectures and writes extensively on business divorce and other corporate governance topics, he’s Co-Chair of the Business Divorce Subcommittee of the ABA Business Law Section, and he leads the Business Divorce and Private Company Disputes group on LinkedIn.
Pete Ladig is Vice Chair of the Corporate and Commercial Litigation Group at Morris James also in Wilmington. Pete concentrates his practice in the areas of corporate governance and commercial litigation, stockholder litigation, fiduciary duties, partnership and limited liability company disputes, and class action and derivative litigation. He’s also active in the ABA Business Divorce Subcommittee and has published articles on business divorce topics including a must-read post on his firm’s blog called What Is Business Divorce? Pete also co-hosts a podcast called CorpCast discussing corporate and commercial law in Delaware.
If you’re interested in business divorce, you’ll certainly enjoy listening to my interview of Kurt and Pete, both of whom speak on the subject with great authority, insight, and passion.