Derivative claims seeking recovery on behalf of the business entity frequently are brought in liitgation among the business’s co-owners. Often they are combined with direct claims seeking individual redress. A decision last week by a Manhattan appellate panel in Yudell v. Gilbert, featuring a signed opinion by Justice Karla Moskowitz, adopts Delaware’s approach to distinguish direct from derivative claims, which is crucial in determining whether the plaintiff must satisfy the requirement of pre-suit demand upon the entity’s controlling body. This week’s New York Business Divorce has the story.
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Recent Fair Value Cases in the Delaware Chancery Court
No one does “fair value” like the Delaware Court of Chancery. This week’s New York Business Divorce highlights three recent share appraisal decisions by that court, whose penetrating legal analysis of valuation issues leads the way for courts across the country.
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Obtaining Discovery of the Company Lawyer in Business Divorce Cases: Privileged or Not?
This week’s New York Business Divorce features an interesting decision by Justice Stephen Bucaria addressing the attorney-client privilege concerning company counsel in a dispute between membership factions of an LLC. Don’t miss it.
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Court Upholds LLC Manager’s Broad Discretion Under Operating Agreement to Determine Member’s Profit Share
A Manhattan panel of appellate judges last month enforced an LLC operating agreement’s provision giving the manager sole discretion — even at his “whimsy” or “impetuously” said the court — to determine a member’s sharing ratio of the firm’s profits. It’s worth reading in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
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The Court’s Equitable Power to Remove and Replace a Limited Partnership’s General Partner
Equitable remedy trumps pick-your-partner, is one way to describe the outcome in Garber v. Stevens, decided last month by Justice Eileen Bransten, who granted a motion by limited partners to remove the wrongdoing general partners of a real estate limited partnership and replace them with an LLC wholly owned by the limited partners. Read more about this unusual case in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
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Court Compels Buyout Despite Consent to Dissolution
In an unusual corporate dissolution case involving 50/50 shareholders decided last month by Justice Emily Pines, the court compelled a buyout of the petitioner’s shares by the other shareholder notwithstanding the latter’s consent to dissolution. Get the full story in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
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Unclean Hands Defense Defeats Petitioner’s Shareholder Status in Corporate Dissolution Suit
The doctrine of “unclean hands” played a decisive role in a recent decision by Justice Emily Pines in Kimelstein v. Kimelstein, in which the court dismissed a dissolution petition brought by someone who admitted that he never formalized his stock interest to keep it hidden from his ex-wives and the government. It’s in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading Unclean Hands Defense Defeats Petitioner’s Shareholder Status in Corporate Dissolution Suit
Court Upholds Complaint Seeking Common Law Dissolution of Family-Owned Business
In New York, the common law right to judicial dissolution of a closely held corporation has existed for about 50 years, but there have few reported cases on the subject, which gives all the more reason to read this week’s New York Business Divorce highlighting an important decision earlier this month by Justice Alan Scheinkman in White v. Fee, denying a motion to dismiss a common law dissolution claim involving a family-owned business.
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Woe Unto the Undocumented LLC Member Seeking Judicial Dissolution
A tattoo parlor business is the unusual setting for a decision last week by the Appellate Division, Second Department, affirming the lower court’s post-trial dismissal of an LLC dissolution case brought by a member claiming denial of her co-equal management rights. It’s “inked” in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
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Bad LLC Agreement Makes Bad Law in Dispute Over Capital Call
Provisions in LLC operating agreements, penalizing members for failing to make capital contributions, have generated a number of court decisions in recent years, but none as interesting and perhaps controversial as last week’s ruling by the Appellate Division, First Department, in Antonini v. Petito. You won’t want to miss it in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading Bad LLC Agreement Makes Bad Law in Dispute Over Capital Call