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This week’s New York Business Divorce features a pair of recent decisions by New York and Delaware courts addressing disputes between accounting firms and departing partners over entitlement to buy-out payments. Both are highly interesting decisions, especially for anyone involved in drafting agreements for professional firms.
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Continue Reading New York and Delaware Courts Decide Disputes Over Accounting Firm Buyouts

The key-person discount makes a rare but ultimately unsuccessful appearance in a fair value buyout proceeding triggered by a corporate dissolution petition filed by minority shareholders of an office copier sales and leasing company. The valuation report by Referee Louis Crespo, and the decision confirming it by Manhattan Commercial Division Justice Barbara R. Kapnick, are featured in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
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Continue Reading Key Person Discount Takes Center Stage in Stock Valuation Proceeding

A rare case stemming from a petition to dissolve a residential co-op corporation is the subject of this week’s New York Business Divorce. The decision by Justice Carolyn Demarest in McDaniel v. 162 Columbia Heights addresses challenging valuation issues for this unique type of business corporation.
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Continue Reading Valuing Shares in a Residential Co-op Corporation: Is the Whole Worth More Than the Sum of its Parts?

The death in 2007 of Claudia Cohen, a well-known gossip columnist and socialite who married and divorced billionaire Ronald Perelman, led to a high-stakes litigation between her estate and her surviving brother over the valuation of the estate’s 50% share in a family partnership that directly or indirectly owned real estate interests with a market value over $20 million. A recent court decision ruled against the estate’s $11.5 million claim and, instead, enforced a $178,000 “net book value” buyout under the partnership agreement’s formula, also rejecting the estate’s argument that such a drastically below-market buyout was unconscionable. Read this week’s New York Business Divorce to get the full story.
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Continue Reading Court Rejects Unconscionability Argument in Family Partnership Valuation Case, Concludes that “Full and True Value” Equals “Net Book Value” as Defined by Agreement

Did you know that the Surrogate’s Court has jurisdiction over corporate dissolution proceedings involving the estate of a deceased shareholder? Read more in this week’s New York Business Divorce highlighting a recent appellate decision affirming an award in favor of the estate of a minority shareholder arising from a petition for judicial dissolution of an accounting firm.
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Continue Reading Majority Shareholders of Accounting Firm Held Liable for Value of Deceased Minority Shareholder’s Interest After They Formed New Firm Using Old Firm’s Assets and Good Will

Valuation discounts are among the most hotly contested issues in minority shareholder buy-out proceedings triggered by dissolution petitions. As between the discount for lack of marketability and the minority discount (a/k/a discount for lack of control), New York case law allows one of them and prohibits the other. Do you know which is which? Find out in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
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Continue Reading What’s the Difference Between Marketability and Minority Discounts?

Suffolk County Commercial Division Justice Elizabeth Hazlitt Emerson recently decided a fair value appraisal in a stock buyout proceeding under BCL 1118, in which she rejected the two experts’ widely divergent conclusions of value in favor of her own computation based on the income approach. Read all about it in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
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Continue Reading Court Rejects Experts’ Appraisals in Fair Value Proceeding, Relies on Own Computation Using Income Approach

A recent appellate decision, ordering a new stock valuation hearing in a case marked by incomplete expert testimony and inadequate findings by the judicial hearing officer who heard the valuation evidence, prompts thoughts on the use of hired-gun experts in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
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Continue Reading Stock Valuation, Dr. Pangloss, Mr. Scrooge and Do-Overs

When company co-owners fight, “Duck for cover!” may be the best advice for the company’s outside accountant. In this week’s New York Business Divorce, read about a CPA firm that got caught in the crossfire of a dissolution contest and ended up having to defend itself against allegations of improper partisanship.
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Continue Reading Certified Partisan Accountant? Court Allows LLC Member’s Suit Against Company’s CPA, Alleging Improper Assistance to Other Member in Judicial Dissolution Proceeding

Justice Ira Warshawsky of Nassau County Supreme Court’s Commercial Division has issued a “BIG” decision (as in discount for Built-In Gains tax) in a stock valuation arising out of a dissolution proceeding brought by minority shareholders claiming oppression. Read about it in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
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Continue Reading Court Discounts Fair Value Award for Built-In Gains Tax in Shareholder Oppression Case