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The qualifying phrase, “Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in this Agreement,” can be a highly useful and efficient means to clarify the hierarchy of otherwise potentially competing contract provisions. It can also trigger thorny litigation when two “notwithstanding” clauses arguably conflict with one another, as in the case featured in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading Court’s Decision in High Stakes Case Cuts Through the “Fog of Dueling ‘Notwithstanding’ Clauses”

This week’s New York Business Divorce features the highly anticipated ruling by the New York Court of Appeals, in a 4-3 decision in Behler v Tao, affirming dismissal of a complaint seeking to enforce an oral “exit opportunity agreement” involving a Delaware LLC. …
Continue Reading New York Top Court’s Advice to Prospective Investors in Delaware LLCs: Pay Close Attention to Controller’s Power to Amend LLC Agreement

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This week’s post concerns a decision out of the Delaware Chancery Court, in which the Court was tasked with determining whether the absolute litigation privilege bars the exercise of a contractual repurchase option triggered by claimed disparaging statements made in prior litigation.
Continue Reading Freedom (But with Consequences): In Delaware, Absolute Litigation Privilege Inapplicable to Nullify Contractual Non-Disparagement Repurchase Trigger

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This week’s New York Business Divorce post features a Delaware Chancery Court post-trial decision of first impression discussing the extent of an Estate’s exercise of member rights for a “proper purpose” in a case involving the Goldman real estate empire.
Continue Reading When It Talks Like a Member, Walks Like a Member, Acts Like a Member… But Isn’t a Member: First Impression Chancery Decision Rules on Estate’s Exercise of Member Rights “For Proper Purpose”

Delaware Chancery Court’s contractarian approach to all things LLC, embedded statutorily in Section 18-1101(b) of the Delaware LLC Act (“It is the policy of this chapter to give the maximum effect to the principle of freedom of contract and to the enforceability of limited liability company agreements”), has been no less forceful in its rich body of caselaw tethering LLC members to the text of their operating agreement when addressing applications for judicial dissolution of LLCs under Section 18-802 of the Act.

Section 18-802, which closely resembles New York’s LLC Law Section 702, authorizes Chancery to decree dissolution of an LLC “whenever it is not reasonably practicable to carry on the business in conformity with a limited liability company agreement.” In a string of seminal decisions including Haley (2004), Silver Leaf (2005), Seneca (2008) Fisk Ventures (2009), and Arrow (2009), Chancery developed a two-prong standard for judicial dissolution either where there exists deadlock that prevents the LLC from operating with no mechanism in the operating agreement to break deadlock, or where the LLC’s purpose as defined in the operating agreement cannot be carried out.

In Vice Chancellor Laster’s 2015 Carlisle opinion, which I wrote about here, the court broke new, not-so-contractarian ground by holding that it could order the dissolution of an LLC under the court’s traditional equity jurisdiction at the behest of a non-member assignee of a membership interest who otherwise lacked standing to seek dissolution under Section 18-802.

But that’s not the sort of equitable dissolution I want to focus on. The sort I have in mind is where the court entertains and grants a statutory claim for judicial dissolution of an LLC where the facts don’t fit neatly or at all the articulated standard yet the equities as between the parties demand dissolution as a matter of good old-fashioned fairness. Delaware’s contractarian LLC jurisprudence does not welcome that definition of equitable dissolution, nor can I point to any examples of Chancery decisions that fit that bill.

Until now, at least arguably.

In a post-trial opinion handed down earlier this month by Vice Chancellor Will in Gibson v Konick, the court ordered dissolution of an LLC formed for the purpose of owning a vacation home. The LLC had two, formerly romantically involved, 50/50 members. The operating agreement named one of them sole manager, hence there was no deadlock as that term is normally used to refer to the contractual inability to exercise managerial authority. The operating agreement’s stated purpose was to acquire, develop, and own residential property. Those purposes either were achieved or remained attainable.

So how did the court conclude grounds for dissolution under Section 18-802? As I see it, in a word: fairness.Continue Reading Did Chancery Court Just Crack Open the Door to Equitable Dissolution of LLCs?

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This week’s New York Business Divorce showcases how courts reign in aggrieved limited partners whose demands stray from the plain terms of the limited partnership agreement…
Continue Reading You Get What You Get, and You Don’t Get Upset: First Department Boots Limited Partner’s Claims Based on Plain Terms of Limited Partnership Agreement

On the menu for this week’s New York Business Divorce: five noteworthy business divorce cases from five different states. …
Continue Reading Crossing the Hudson: Recent Business Divorce Decisions from Yonder States

In a split 3-2 decision last week, the Appellate Division, First Department, affirmed an order dismissing a claim to enforce an oral buy-out agreement involving a Delaware LLC as barred by the merger clause in a subsequently amended operating agreement that the plaintiff never signed. Read about it in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading New York Appellate Court’s Split Decision Involving Delaware LLC Pits “Harsh” Contractarianism Against “Fundamental Fairness”