Photo of Peter A. Mahler

Peter A. Mahler is a litigator focusing on business divorce cases involving dissolution and other disputes among co-­owners of closely held business entities, such as limited liability companies, corporations, and partnerships. Peter represents both control and non-control owners, often involving family-owned businesses. Frequently counseling business owners prior to litigation, he advises them of their rights and also assists in designing and negotiating an amicable separation between parties. Peter’s counsel helps avoid litigation by means of a buy-out, sale, or division of business assets.

 

 

A recent decision by Justice Vito DeStefano highlights the choices to be made by a 50% shareholder when choosing the statutory basis for dissolution, and the effect the choice has on available remedies. The case is featured in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading Choose the Right Dissolution Statute for the Right Remedy

In this week’s New York Business Divorce, find out how Justice Vito DeStefano ruled when asked to dismiss a damages suit by a minority shareholder against the majority shareholder, brought years after the minority shareholder abandoned a prior dissolution proceeding in which the majority shareholder elected to purchase.
Continue Reading Buy-Out Interruptus: Court Okays New Suit Five Years After Unconsummated Election to Purchase in Prior Dissolution Case

This week’s New York Business Divorce offers short summaries of three recent decisions of interest by Commercial Division Justices Melvin Schweitzer, Carolyn Demarest, and Marcy Friedman in which the courts addressed interesting issues concerning shareholder standing to seek removal of a director and dissolution of a wholly-owned subsidiary; venue in dissolution proceedings; and application of CPLR 205’s savings provision to the statute of limitations in a dissolution case.
Continue Reading Summer Shorts: Director Removal and Other Recent Decisions of Interest

Can real property titled in the names of individuals be deemed partnership property? That’s the question recently answered by Justice Carolyn Demarest in Sokolowski v. Wodkiewicz, a case involving competing claims by the estate of a deceased property owner and the surviving co-owners who asserted the right to purchase the estate’s interest. This week’s New York Business Divorce has the story.
Continue Reading Court Determines Realty is Partnership Asset in Dispute Between Surviving Partner and Estate

The Appellate Division’s landmark ruling in the 1545 Ocean Avenue case sharply demarcated the different statutes and different grounds available for judicial dissolution of LLCs and closely held corporations. So why, in a recent trial court decision, did the court grant judicial dissolution of an LLC under both the LLC Law and the Business Corporation Law? This week’s New York Business Divorce explains.
Continue Reading Did Anyone Tell the Judge the Business Corporation Law Doesn’t Apply to LLC Dissolution?