Shareholder derivative actions pose unique pleading challenges designed by statute to preserve management’s role in deciding the company’s business affairs. This week’s New York Business Divorce highlights a pair of recent appellate rulings dismissing derivative actions for failure to plead demand futility with sufficient particularity.
Continue Reading
Is a former director and officer entitled to advancement of legal fees incurred in the defense of legal claims asserted against her by the corporation? That was the question decided by VC Glasscock of the Delaware Chancery Court in a case where the corporate charter’s indemnification and advancement provisions were not a model of clarity.
Continue Reading
Last week’s decision by Chancellor Bouchard in Acela v. DiFalco involves a flawed deadlock resolution provision in an LLC agreement that not only failed to resolve deadlock, it was exploited by one side to create deadlock. Learn more in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading
A rudimentary, “de facto” operating agreement with a cryptic withdrawal/buyout provision predictably set the stage for a unique valuation contest in the Delaware case highlighted in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading
Matthew Donovan takes the helm in this week’s New York Business Divorce, writing about a recent Delaware Chancery Court decision finding that certain, shall we say, unusual behavior by a New York-based company’s co-founder, president and director breached fiduciary duty.
Continue Reading
The New York Business Divorce blog has covered hundreds of cases over the past 11 years. This week’s post revisits three of them, two of which were recently resolved, one of which is still going strong, and all of which made the list of Top Ten business divorce cases in years past.
Continue Reading
Ill-fated hardly begins to describe the legislatively doomed LLC involved in the lawsuit featured in this week’s New York Business Divorce. You won’t want to miss it.
Continue Reading
Intellectual property rights are the lifeblood of many a closely held business entity. This week’s New York Business Divorce looks at three recent decisions involving disputes among business co-owners over the ownership and exploitation of critical IP assets.
Continue Reading
Derivative actions brought by LLC members take the spotlight for the second week in a row, this time featuring a pair of noteworthy decisions involving Delaware and Nevada LLCs in which the defendants argued that the plaintiff’s right to sue derivatively was waived by the operating agreement. Learn more in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading
The implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing continues to sow confusion as to its utility and application in disputes among business co-owners, in which often it is misconceived as a quasi-fiduciary claim invoking the court’s equity powers to right any wrong, when in fact it is a narrow, contract-based doctrine. A recent Delaware Chancery Court decision provides a highly useful guide, as explained in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading