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 Commercial Division ruling involving a realty holding LLC unable to develop its property raises interesting questions about whether the LLC can achieve its stated purpose under the standard for judicial dissolution. Learn more in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading And a Time to Every Purpose Under . . . the Operating Agreement?

State courts far and away are the dominant arena for business divorce litigation. Just for kicks if not giggles, this week’s New York Business Divorce takes a look at some recent cases involving partnership disputes decided by federal courts.
Continue Reading Federal Courts Wade Into Business Divorce: Recent Decisions of Interest

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

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.
Continue Reading Minority Shareholder’s Petition to Dissolve Seltzer Business Loses Its Fizz

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.
Continue Reading Business Divorce, Brooklyn Style

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.
Continue Reading LLCs, Direct vs. Derivative Claims, and Special Litigation Committees: A Lively Debate