A recent Second Department decision confronts the rigid requirements of the BCL and considers whether equity can rescue shareholders who attempt to issue shares beyond those authorized by the certificate of incorporation.
Continue Reading Over the Limit: Can Equity Trump the Certificate of Incorporation’s Share Cap?
This week’s New York Business Divorce features an intra-family battle concerning the precise contours of admittance as a “full” member of the family business.
In this week’s New York Business Divorce, read about last week’s important Appellate Division decision for the first time explicitly holding that LLC Law 608 gives member voting rights to the estate of a deceased member.
Continue Reading Appellate Division Construes LLC Law 608 as Giving Voting Rights to a Deceased Member’s Estate
Postnup agreement clashes with LLC agreement’s transfer restrictions in this week’s New York Business Divorce featuring a querelle de famille among the French heirs to the Bic pen fortune.
Continue Reading Operating Agreement Trumps Postnup in High Stakes Battle Over Transfer of LLC Interest
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”
In this week’s New York Business Divorce, the sequel to an article about an earlier decision in the same case, read about a trio of decisions issued in rapid succession against a widow who claimed to have become shareholder of a corporation through a testamentary bequest that violated a shareholders’ agreement prohibiting stock transfers except to the shareholders’ “issue” or upon “unanimous consent” of all shareholders.
Continue Reading Three Strikes You’re Out: Sebrow Revisited
This week’s New York Business Divorce revisits a recurrent fact pattern featured in a recent Florida case involving a conflict between provision in a partnership agreement restricting transfer upon death and the deceased partner’s testamentary devise of the partnership interest.
Continue Reading When It Comes to Transfers of Ownership Interests, Where There’s a Will There’s Not Always a Way
In this week’s New York Business Divorce, we tackle two important legal issues for LLC owners. First, the circumstances in which an upon-death membership interest transfer provision in an unsigned, non-final operating agreement may be enforced. Second, whether a membership interest transfer provision in an operating agreement trumps a conflicting bequest in a last will and testament.
Continue Reading Unsigned, Non-Final Operating Agreement Trumps Conflicting Testamentary Bequest of LLC Interest
In this week’s New York Business Divorce, we discuss a recent decision serving as a reminder to corporate shareholders planning to bequeath their shares of stock to ensure no contracts prohibit them from doing so, lest they leave behind a very disappointed beneficiary.
Continue Reading When Estate Plans and Stock Transfer Restrictions Collide
It’s time for another cross-country trip in this week’s New York Business Divorce which summarizes a quintet of recent appellate decisions in business divorce cases by courts outside New York.
Continue Reading Business Divorce Nation: A Cross-Country Tour of Recent Decisions of Interest