This week’s New York Business Divorce presents the 2025 Winter Case Notes, where we highlight a few recent decisions of interest featuring strict adherence to statutory language and the parties’ governing agreements.
Continue Reading Winter Case Notes: Nice Try, But the Agreements Say What They Say
The irony of litigation over buy-sell agreements is that such agreements are specifically intended to avoid litigation when owners die or become disabled or otherwise seek to exit the firm. Take, for example, last week’s Appellate Division ruling, reversing the lower court’s decision dismissing a claim to enforce an operating agreement’s buy-sell provision. Better yet, read about it in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading The Little Buy-Sell That Could
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
“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 . . .
An Operating Agreement that calls for “annual updates” to its dissolution procedures is begging for trouble. This week’s post demonstrates why.
Continue Reading A Lifeline for the Stale “Schedule A”
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 post discusses what happens when shareholders of a Professional Corporation retire without an agreement governing the redemption of their shares.
Continue Reading Must a Professional Corporation Redeem the Shares of its Retired Shareholders?
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
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