Controlling shareholders who oppose corporate dissolution proceedings may be tempted to use company funds to pay their legal fees. This week’s New York Business Divorce features a decision by Justice Orin Kitzes holding in contempt of court a majority shareholder who did just that,
Continue Reading Court Holds Shareholder in Contempt for Using Company Funds to Pay Legal Fees
A Manhattan appellate panel’s ruling last month provides a cautionary lesson about the need to anticipate and address tax issues, including potential taxes on phantom income, when negotiating buyout settlements involving shares in passthrough entities. You’ll find it in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading Negotiating a Buyout? Don’t Overlook Taxes on Phantom Income
This week’s New York Business Divorce features an important decision last month by Justice Vito DeStefano in which he upheld a claim for advancement of legal fees incurred by a close corporation minority shareholder, director and former officer, who initiated suit against the controlling shareholder, in defending counterclaims asserted in the name and right of the company.
Continue Reading Court Upholds Former Officer’s Right to Seek Indemnity and Advancement in Intra-Company Dispute
Justice Stephen Bucaria’s recent decision in PFT Technology LLC v. Wieser is one of only a handful of rulings by New York courts addressing the right to advancement of legal fees in litigation among members of a limited liability company. Learn more in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading Novel Ruling on Advancement in LLC Dissolution Case “Levels the Playing Field”
As New York’s Suffolk County continues to grow its population and economy, so too grows the volume and complexity of business litigation in the courts of Suffolk County Supreme Court. This week’s New York Business Divorce focuses on the Suffolk County Commercial Division, with a sampling of three recent decisions of interest by Justices Emerson, Pines and Whelan involving shareholder disputes.
Continue Reading Business Divorce Cases in the Suffolk County Commercial Division
The lawyer who appeared for the corporation in Matter of Boucher, decided last week by a Brooklyn appellate panel, learned the hard way that courts will not allow one 50% shareholder to use corporate funds to resist dissolution sought by the other 50% shareholder. It’s in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading The Accidental Pro Bono Business Divorce Lawyer
This week’s New York Business Divorce examines a recent decision by Justice Carolyn E. Demarest in Pisane v. Feig, where the court confirmed an arbitration award stemming from a petition for judicial dissolution of several affiliated companies, in which the arbitrator decided which of the two parties was entitled to buy out the other, and at what price.
Continue Reading Arbitration Award in Stock Buy-Out Dispute Withstands Challenge
In the first of a two-part series, this week’s New York Business Divorce looks at the Delaware Chancery Court’s important decision last month in Auriga Capital v. Gatz in which Chancellor Leo Strine, Jr. sets forth an analytic framework for imposition of fiduciary duties on managers of Delaware LLCs. Next week’s post will compare the law governing fiduciary duties of New York LLC managers.
Continue Reading What Does Chancellor Strine’s Auriga Capital Decision Teach Us About Fiduciary Duties of New York LLC Managers? (Part One)
A recent decision by Queens County Commercial Division Justice Orin Kitzes in Matter of Adelstein illustrates the crucial role of forensic accounting in testing and adjusting a company’s financial statements for purposes of stock valuation in an oppressed minority shareholder case. Read more in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading Forensic Accounting Helps Wins the Day in Oppressed Shareholder Stock Valuation Proceeding
Stock valuation aficionados will not want to miss the report in this week’s New York Business Divorce on the recent decision in Matter of Harlem River Yard Ventures, Inc. It’s a dissenting shareholder case triggered by a squeeze-out merger in which the court was faced with widely disparate expert valuations of a company holding a 99-year lease on the Bronx site of the former Penn Central rail yards, now serving as an industrial park.
Continue Reading Court Endorses Discounted Cash Flow Method, Rejects Post-Merger Tax Benefits, in Determining Fair Value Award to Dissenting Shareholder