In this week’s New York Business Divorce, read about an unusually brazen case of misappropriation of corporate opportunity culminating in a hefty judgment against the perpetrators, including punitive damages and an accounting surcharge.
Continue Reading Misappropriated Watering Hole Becomes Money Judgment Sinkhole
In this week’s New York Business Divorce, read about a multi-year litigation odyssey culminating in the statute-of-limitations dismissal of a claim for misappropriation of an alleged corporate opportunity to own land based upon the date of execution of the contract of sale rather than the closing of the real estate purchase.
Continue Reading A Litigation Odyssey
A claim for “usurpation of corporate opportunity” is simple to allege, but difficult to prove. Two recent cases out of the Manhattan Commercial Division and the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York explore the bounds of the corporate opportunity doctrine under New York and Delaware law.
Continue Reading A Recurring Business Divorce Feature: Usurpation of Corporate Opportunity
In this week’s New York Business Divorce, read about the opaque doctrine of disqualifying shareholder derivative plaintiff conflicts of interest, including a pair of decisions less than a month apart by New York and Delaware courts casting doubt upon the doctrine’s continued expanse and viability.
Continue Reading The “Conflict of Interest” Defense to Shareholder Derivative Standing
It’s that time of year again! This 12th annual edition of Summer Shorts presents brief commentary on five recent decisions of interest in business divorce cases in the New York courts.
Continue Reading Summer Shorts: LLC Dissolution and Other Recent Decisions of Interest
If you think Brooklyn is still a backwater to Manhattan when it comes to important business litigation, think again. This week’s New York Business Divorce looks at a handful of recent decisions in shareholder disputes by prolific Justice Leon Ruchelsman of the Brooklyn Supreme Court’s Commercial Division.
Continue Reading Business Divorce, Brooklyn Style
This week’s New York Business Divorce offers readers a preview of two thought provoking articles by Professors Donald Weidner and Daniel Kleinberger published as point/counter-point in the current issue of The Business Lawyer on the subject of LLCs, the direct-derivative distinction, and Special Litigation Committees.
Continue Reading LLCs, Direct vs. Derivative Claims, and Special Litigation Committees: A Lively Debate
They say revenge is a dish best served cold. In this week’s New York Business Divorce, celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay serves his former business partner a cold dish in the form of a large post-trial judgment in a case seeking dissolution and derivative damages on behalf of two out-of-state entities formed to operate defunct Ramsay restaurant “The Fat Cow.”
Continue Reading Gordon Ramsay’s The Fat Cow: Dishing Up Damages and Dissolution
In this week’s New York Business Divorce, read about the latest chapter in a long-running litigation saga between the son and daughter of artist Peter Max fighting for control of their family-owned corporation.
Continue Reading Principles of Fiduciary Deference: The Business Judgment Rule and Exculpatory Clauses
A plaintiff’s “equitable standing” to bring a shareholder derivative action is hardly a common issue in litigation of the sort, which makes all the more interesting last week’s decision by the Delaware Court of Chancery rejecting a plaintiff’s attempt to bypass the contemporaneous ownership rule. Read more in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading Equitable Standing in Shareholder Derivative Suit Bows to the Contemporaneous Ownership Rule