When cash never hits the books, can an accounting still deliver meaningful relief? A recent decision offers answers—and warnings.
Continue Reading Can an Equitable Accounting Find the Missing Cash?
Commentary on Dissolution and Other Disputes Among Co-Owners of Closely Held Business Entities
When cash never hits the books, can an accounting still deliver meaningful relief? A recent decision offers answers—and warnings.…
Continue Reading Can an Equitable Accounting Find the Missing Cash?
Don’t expect anything neat and clean about the case featured in this week’s NYBD involving a contested LLC freeze-out merger.
Continue Reading One Very Messy LLC Freeze-Out Merger
Hoping to derive standing to sue from an LLC membership interest assignment? This week’s New York Business Divorce is another reminder that assignment of a membership interest does not convey actual membership status, with all the coveted legal rights flowing therefrom, unless the operating agreement grants the assignor such power, and, then, only where the assignor and assignee comply with all the conditions of the contract for admission of a new member. Anything less can result in total litigation defeat.…
Continue Reading Mere Assignment of an LLC Membership Interest Does Not Make You a Member
The Appellate Division, Second Department delivered last week a fascinating case pitting a deadlock-based LLC dissolution petition against an equity forfeiture provision in the parties’ operating agreement. Add to that a bracing reminder that lazy pleadings and procedural missteps in special proceedings can be outcome-determinative, and Ribeiro v Libutti, 2025 NY Slip Op 06865 (2d Dept Dec. 10, 2025), becomes a cautionary tale for business owners and litigators alike.…
A recent appellate ruling provides the perfect excuse for revisiting a favorite topic, namely the powers of an estate representative of a deceased LLC member.
Continue Reading Score Another Round for the Estate: First Department Upholds Right of Deceased LLC Member’s Executor to Pursue Member Rights
This week on New York Business Divorce, read about the interplay between statutory and contract rules for LLC manager removal or expulsion, set within an appeal from a trio of decisions we wrote about what feels like a lifetime ago.…
Think bad faith can save you from expulsion? A new ruling shows just how slim that lifeline really is.…
Continue Reading The Bad Faith Defense to Opportunistic Expulsion
A recent California case may shed light on how New York courts should handle ant-dissolution provisions in LLC agreements.
Continue Reading Does This California Case Bolster the Argument Against Waiver of the Right to Seek Judicial Dissolution of New York LLCs?
It’s that time of year for our Summer Shorts edition, this year highlighting a trio of decisions involving LLC member disputes.
Continue Reading Summer Shorts: A Trio of Recent Decisions of Interest in LLC Member Disputes