Buyout

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This week in New York Business Divorce, read about yet another attempted bequest in a last will and testament of a valuable business interest foiled by a buy-sell provision in the entity’s contract. We’ll summarize some of the rules of law courts use to resolve the conflict.
Continue Reading A Gift Horse with Rotten Teeth: When Equity Bequests Violate Transfer Restrictions or Buy-Sell Agreements

This week’s New York Business Divorce touches on familiar themes. A bitter father-son dispute. A disagreement over whether to sell or keep the business. An expulsion and compelled buyout. Throw in a fistfight, criminal charges, and an alleged extortion in exchange for reduced criminal charges, and you’ve got one heck of a sordid story. There’s even a legal lesson about the importance of strict compliance with closing deadlines in buy-sell option agreements.
Continue Reading Dollars, Donuts, and Buy-Sell Options

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“Under any standard of value, the true economic value of a business enterprise will equal the company’s accounting book value only by coincidence . . .” says the late business valuation expert and author Shannon Pratt.  So why do so many shareholder buy-sell agreements require that the shares be purchased for book value? This week’s post explores.
Continue Reading And the Award for Most Creative Attempt to Evade a Book Value Buy-Sell Provision Goes To . . .

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What happens when you cross an at-will employment agreement with a mandatory redemption requirement at a deeply discounted price? Find out in this week’s post.
Continue Reading At-Will Employment Agreement Plus Mandatory Redemption Clause Leaves Minority Shareholder-Employees Out in the Cold

This week’s New York Business Divorce offers a trifecta of sorts, offering summaries of three recent decisions, one involving an LLC, another a partnership, and another a close corporation.
Continue Reading Recent Decisions Enforce LLC Member’s Right of First Refusal, Restrict Partnership Accounting, and Allow Damages Claim for Breach of Oral Shareholders Agreement

Road Trip

When a shareholder petitions for dissolution, many states have statutes allowing the corporation to respond by buying out the complaining shareholder. This week’s post takes a look at several recent decisions concerning buyout elections across the country.
Continue Reading A Cross-Country Road Trip of Elections to Purchase in Dissolution Proceedings

Most practitioners believe the summary judgment in lieu of complaint statute, CPLR 3213, applies just to contracts involving loans or other indebtedness. Not so. In a recent decision, a Manhattan Commercial Division Justice granted summary judgment in lieu of complaint, entering a money judgment for nearly $35 million, based upon a seldom litigated provision of the statute permitting accelerated treatment “upon any judgment” – in this case, a prior declaratory judgment. Read about the Court’s novel approach to summary judgment in lieu of complaint in this week New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading Summary Judgment in Lieu of Complaint Meets Business Divorce

This week’s post considers a recent decision from New York County Commercial Division Justice Borrok, who offers well-reasoned guidance on the separateness between claims to specifically enforce a buy-sell agreement, on the one hand, and damages claims, on the other.
Continue Reading Never the Twain Shall Meet: Damages Claims Do Not Offset the Purchase Price in Buy-Sell Agreements