March 2021

A recent decision by the Eleventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has created a split among the Circuits on the question whether federal District Courts should decline to adjudicate corporate dissolution actions under the Burford abstention doctrine. Learn more in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading U.S. Circuit Courts Split on Abstention Doctrine in Dissolution Cases

Can the federal statute that brought down John Gotti also play a role in business divorce litigation? This week’s New York Business Divorce looks at the sparse and largely if not entirely unsuccessful role the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act a/k/a RICO has played in litigation between co-owners of closely held firms.
Continue Reading Civil RICO: A Blunt But Elusive Tool in Business Divorce Cases

In this week’s New York Business Divorce, learn if it’s possible to plead the existence of a viable oral partnership whose business operated in the form of a corporation or limited liability company. The short answer: yes it can be done, but it’s not easy to do.
Continue Reading The Oral Partnership Operating as a Corporation: Is it a Partnership? A Corporation? Can it be Both?

If man’s first sin was eating the apple, a business valuator’s greatest sin is mixing apples and oranges. In Dieckman v. Regency GP, LP, Chancellor Bouchard denied the Plaintiff’s bid for $1.6 billion in damages, even after finding that the defendant general partner breached the partnership agreement’s implied duty of good faith and fair dealing.  The decision rests on Chancellor Bouchard’s complete rejection of Plaintiff’s damages calculation on the grounds that it was akin to “comparing apples to oranges.”…
Continue Reading General Partner Breached Implied Covenants in Partnership Agreement, but Plaintiff’s “Apples-to-Oranges” Calculation Dooms Bid for Damages