Family-Owned Businesses

When a corporation disposes of “all or substantially all” assets, shareholders opposed to the transaction are entitled to dissent and demand fair value for their shares in an appraisal proceeding. Does a corporation’s transfer of its assets to another entity with retention of “beneficial” ownership trigger the statutory right to dissent and seek fair value? Learn the answer in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading Direct to Beneficial: Change of Corporate Ownership Structure Yields No Right to Dissent and Seek Appraisal

In this week’s New York Business Divorce, we consider the problem of concurrent, overlapping business and marital dissolution proceedings, including a small but growing body of case law addressing how to prioritize one over the other. For judges and lawyers accustomed to commercial courts exercising their jurisdictional powers broadly, the result may be surprising.
Continue Reading Parallel Business and Matrimonial Divorce Proceedings

These days general partnership decisions are rare. This general partnership rule is unprecedented: continuing to run an at-will partnership post-dissolution results in the partnership’s reconstitution even if the majority is actively suing for judicially supervised wind up. Does that sound right? Get our take in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading A General Partnership in Perpetual Enmity

This week’s New York Business Divorce revisits the Eastland Food v Mekhaya case, focusing on last month’s Maryland Supreme Court’s split decision on whether the minority shareholder has a direct claim for breach of fiduciary duty based on alleged disguised distributions taken by the controlling shareholders.
Continue Reading Eastland Redux: Do Close Corporation Shareholders Have a Direct Claim Against Directors For Taking Disguised Distributions?

In this week’s New York Business Divorce, we consider some recurring problems for corporate and general counsel in business divorce cases, including difficult issues of attorney-client privilege and the appreciable risk of disqualification when roles change from corporate to litigation counsel.
Continue Reading Pitfalls for Corporate Counsel in Business Divorce Disputes

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

In this week’s New York Business Divorce, read about several strands of case law employing different language to express the same concept: a closely-held business interest transfer restriction or buy-sell agreement that would impose a “forfeiture,” cause the interest to become “void,” result in “annihilation of property,” or “bestow a windfall” upon a co-owner, is unenforceable as against public policy.
Continue Reading Stock Transfer Restrictions and “Annihilation of Property”

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