Compared to its Business Corporation Law, New York’s LLC Law provides greater latitude to LLC members when it comes to making management decisions without necessity of holding a formal meeting. A recent Delaware Chancery Court decision construing that state’s similar LLC statute sheds light on the interplay between the statutory default rule and operating agreement provisions that set forth voting procedures without mention of the members’ right to take action without a meeting. It’s in this week’s New York Business Divorce.

Continue Reading When Can LLC Members Act Without Holding a Meeting?

This week’s New York Business Divorce offers some “summer shorts” consisting of summaries of three recent decisions of interest including two by Justice Timothy Driscoll and another by Justice David Schmidt, featuring disputes over a liquidating receiver’s sale of the dissolved corporation’s real property and the requirements for pleading derivative claims.

Continue Reading Summer Shorts: Liquidating Receiver’s Authority to Compel Share Redemption and Other Recent Decisions of Interest

This week’s New York Business Divorce features an interesting decision by Justice Stephen Bucaria addressing the attorney-client privilege concerning company counsel in a dispute between membership factions of an LLC. Don’t miss it.

Continue Reading Obtaining Discovery of the Company Lawyer in Business Divorce Cases: Privileged or Not?

A tattoo parlor business is the unusual setting for a decision last week by the Appellate Division, Second Department, affirming the lower court’s post-trial dismissal of an LLC dissolution case brought by a member claiming denial of her co-equal management rights. It’s “inked” in this week’s New York Business Divorce.

Continue Reading Woe Unto the Undocumented LLC Member Seeking Judicial Dissolution

Justice Kevin Dowd issued a significant decision last month, granting dissolution of an LLC operating a youth baseball camp near the Baseball Hall of Fame in upstate Cooperstown, based on the majority member’s diversion of hospitality business to offsite facilities. It’s in this week’s New York Business Divorce.

Continue Reading Majority Member’s “Egregious Breach” of Operating Agreement Leads to LLC’s Judicial Dissolution

All other things being equal, the odds of an eventual business divorce go up when one of two business partners is also the business’s landlord. Case in point: Matter of Shure (S&S Eatery, LLC), decided last month by Justice Timothy Driscoll. Learn more in this week’s New York Business Divorce.

Continue Reading LLC Dissolution Case Highlights Divergent Interests When One Member is Also the Landlord

By statute a member can seek judicial dissolution of an LLC, but can a member of a member seek dissolution by way of a derivative claim under Tzolis v. Wolff? Find out in this week’s New York Business Divorce featuring Justice Kornreich’s recent decision in JG Club Holdings, LLC v. Jacaranda Holdings, LLC.

Continue Reading Can a Member of a Member of an LLC Sue to Dissolve the LLC?

Delaware decisional law holds that members of a Delaware LLC may eliminate the LLC manager’s default fiduciary duties by explicit disclaimer in the LLC agreement. In its decision last month in Kagan v. HMC-New York, Inc., a divided panel of the Appellate Division, First Department, disagreed whether the wording of a fiduciary disclaimer in an LLC agreement was sufficiently precise to warrant summary dismissal of fiduciary breach claims. Learn more about this important topic in this week’s New York Business Divorce.

Continue Reading Elimination of LLC Manager’s Fiduciary Duties Divides Appellate Panel

Last week’s New York Business Divorce looked at Auriga Capital v. Gatz in which Chancellor Leo Strine of the Delaware Chancery Court undertook a comprehensive analysis of LLC manager fiduciary duties under Delaware law. This week’s post takes a comparative look at New York LLC manager duties.

Continue Reading What Does Chancellor Strine’s Auriga Capital Decision Teach Us About Fiduciary Duties of New York LLC Managers? (Part Two)

In the first of a two-part series, this week’s New York Business Divorce looks at the Delaware Chancery Court’s important decision last month in Auriga Capital v. Gatz in which Chancellor Leo Strine, Jr. sets forth an analytic framework for imposition of fiduciary duties on managers of Delaware LLCs. Next week’s post will compare the law governing fiduciary duties of New York LLC managers.

Continue Reading What Does Chancellor Strine’s Auriga Capital Decision Teach Us About Fiduciary Duties of New York LLC Managers? (Part One)