One of the more interesting defenses in judicial dissolution cases alleging deadlock is that the petitioner itself contrived or manufactured the deadlock for the purpose of achieving dissolution. It’s a defense long ago recognized in cases involving close corporations, and only more recently in cases involving LLCs, including a decision this month by the Delaware Chancery Court. Learn more in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading Contrived LLC Deadlock Doesn’t Cut the Delaware Dissolution Mustard
Is Loss Sharing an “Indispensable Essential” of Partnership?
This week’s New York Business Divorce uses a recent decision in a dispute involving a law firm LLP to explore the issue of “sharing of losses” and whether it is an essential element in establishing one’s status as a partner of a partnership.
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Summer Shorts: LLC Dissolution and Other Recent Decisions of Interest
It’s that time of year again! This 12th annual edition of Summer Shorts presents brief commentary on five recent decisions of interest in business divorce cases in the New York courts.
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Minority Shareholder’s Petition to Dissolve Seltzer Business Loses Its Fizz
Grandpa’s Brooklyn-based seltzer manufacturing business went flat, but his real estate investments went through the roof. This week’s New York Business Divorce features a case in which one of four third-generation owners unsuccessfully sued her brother and cousins for judicial dissolution in her quest to monetize her share of the realty’s value.
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A Lesson In Drafting Capital Call Provisions
Two owner groups. Seven realty-holding joint ventures. Four different versions of disputed capital call provisions. Manhattan Commercial Division Justice Andrea Masley tackles that and much more in her 132-page opinion in Ashkenazy v. Gindi, featured in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
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Business Divorce, Brooklyn Style
If you think Brooklyn is still a backwater to Manhattan when it comes to important business litigation, think again. This week’s New York Business Divorce looks at a handful of recent decisions in shareholder disputes by prolific Justice Leon Ruchelsman of the Brooklyn Supreme Court’s Commercial Division.
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LLCs, Direct vs. Derivative Claims, and Special Litigation Committees: A Lively Debate
This week’s New York Business Divorce offers readers a preview of two thought provoking articles by Professors Donald Weidner and Daniel Kleinberger published as point/counter-point in the current issue of The Business Lawyer on the subject of LLCs, the direct-derivative distinction, and Special Litigation Committees.
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A Loan Is a Loan Is a Loan, Except When It’s Equity
Characterizing funds transfers to and from the company and its owners as either loan or capital transactions, and failing to adequately document such transactions, can have drastic financial, tax, and litigation consequences. Learn more in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading A Loan Is a Loan Is a Loan, Except When It’s Equity
Equitable Standing in Shareholder Derivative Suit Bows to the Contemporaneous Ownership Rule
A plaintiff’s “equitable standing” to bring a shareholder derivative action is hardly a common issue in litigation of the sort, which makes all the more interesting last week’s decision by the Delaware Court of Chancery rejecting a plaintiff’s attempt to bypass the contemporaneous ownership rule. Read more in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
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Corporate Oppression Doctrine Meets Sex Discrimination: A Conversation with Professor Meredith Miller
This week’s post introduces the latest episode of the Business Divorce Roundtable podcast, featuring an interview with Professor Meredith Miller of Touro Law Center discussing her recent law review article entitled Challenging Gender Discrimination in Closely Held Firms: The Hope and Hazard of Corporate Oppression Doctrine. Please give it a listen!
Continue Reading Corporate Oppression Doctrine Meets Sex Discrimination: A Conversation with Professor Meredith Miller