Operating Agreement

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Last week, in Pappas v. Tzolis, the Appellate Division, First Department, handed down a 3-2 decision reinstating claims for fiduciary breach and fraud brought by members of an LLC against another member who acquired their interests allegedly while keeping secret his negotiations to sell the LLC’s sole asset to an outside buyer at a drastically higher valuation. It’s an important decision likely headed to the New York Court of Appeals, and it’s in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
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Continue Reading The Rise and Fall and Rise of Blue Chip: Fiduciary Duty Trumps Waiver in Latest First Department Decision

A recent and controversial decision by the Delaware Chancery Court highlights the need for counsel drafting multiple-member LLC operating agreements to focus attention on whether, and if so the circumstances under which, a member may transfer its membership interest, including economic and voting rights, to another existing member with or without the other members’ consent. Learn more about this important case law development in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
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Continue Reading Avoiding the Pain of Achaian, or How Not to Draft LLC Membership Transfer Provisions

It’s one thing to claim that someone never became a member of an LLC, it’s another to claim that an admitted LLC member later withdrew. Justice Stephen Bucaria addresses the latter claim in his recent decision in Gitlin v. Chirinkin, featured in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
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Continue Reading Member of Real Estate LLC Never Withdrew, Held Entitled to Share of Sale Proceeds

In Georgi v. Polanski, decided last month by Kings County Commercial Division Justice David Schmidt, the court addresses the right of a controlling LLC member to expel the non-controlling member upon his failure to comply with a capital call. It’s in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
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Continue Reading Not a Capital Idea: Making Unauthorized LLC Capital Calls

The hydra-headed Ficus Investments litigation is the gift that keeps on giving, at least to students of business divorce. This week’s New York Business Divorce highlights the latest appellate decision in the case, in which the court reversed an order dissolving the limited liability company that managed the mortgage business at the center of the melee.
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Continue Reading Dispute Over Authenticity of Operating Agreement Leads to Reversal of Order Summarily Granting LLC Dissolution

It’s hard to imagine a more challenging fact pattern and set of legal issues for a law school exam than the one presented in real life in the recently decided case, Pappas v. Tzolis, involving a buyout among LLC members followed by the purchasing member’s sale of the LLC’s asset to an outside buyer for a price far in excess of the buyout, followed by a lawsuit by the former members claiming they were bamboozled by the buying member. Read all about it in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
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Continue Reading Does Operating Agreement’s Clause Permitting Competitive Activities Eliminate Member’s Fiduciary Duty to Disclose Negotiations to Sell LLC’s Assets Before Buying Out Co-Members?

Can a court order the expulsion of an LLC member for misconduct absent language in the operating agreement so providing? Get the answer in this week’s New York Business Divorce highlighting a recent decision by the Appellate Division, Second Department, posing the issue in the context of a bitter dispute between two brothers.
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Continue Reading Tzolis No Solace for Proponent of LLC Member Expulsion

The expulsion of an LLC member for breach of the LLC agreement, when combined with buyout provisions that leave the expelled member with little or no return on investment, is a sure-fire recipe for litigation, as evidenced in a recent decision by Manhattan Commercial Division Justice Melvin Schweitzer in Jain v. Rasteh. Read about it in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
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Continue Reading The Perils of For-Cause Expulsion Provisions in LLC Agreements