A minority partner paid a heavy price for wrongfully dissolving the partnership in an appellate ruling last week applying a 66% minority discount — along with marketability and goodwill discounts and offsets for damages — to the value of the partner’s interest. It’s in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading Partner Who Wrongfully Dissolved Partnership Hit With Whopping 66% Minority Discount

Justice Alan Scheinkman’s highly detailed, 33-page decision last week in Verghetta v Lawlor, valuing a minority interest in two LLCs that own and operate Planet Fitness health clubs, is must reading for lawyers and business appraisers who handle fair value contests. Learn more in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading Threading the Fair-Value Needle: Court Finds Major Flaws in Both Sides’ Appraisals in Arriving at Its Own Value

For the second week in a row, New York Business Divorce examines the always controversial discount for lack of marketability in fair value contests, this time focusing on a recent New Jersey appellate decision applying a 25% DLOM despite strong evidence of liquidity.
Continue Reading Court Applies 25% Marketability Discount Despite “Strong Indicators of Liquidity”

A Brooklyn appellate panel last week provided more fodder for the DLOM debate that’s been in the legal news of late, upholding a 0% DLOM in a fair value appraisal of a membership interest in a real estate holding company. It’s featured in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading Appellate Court Upholds 0% Marketability Discount in LLC Fair Value Case

The Zelouf case returns to the spotlight in this week’s New York Business Divorce, occasioned by Justice Shirley Kornreich’s decision last month denying a motion to reargue the court’s refusal to apply a marketability discount in valuing the shares of a dissenting minority shareholder of a family-owned business.
Continue Reading Court’s Rejection of Marketability Discount in Zelouf Case Guided by Fairness, Not “Formalistic and Buzzwordy Principles”

New York Business Divorce proudly presents its seventh annual list of the past year’s ten most noteworthy business divorce cases, along with short summaries and links to prior posts on the featured cases. Happy New Year!
Continue Reading Top Ten Business Divorce Cases of 2014

On the heels of the Zelouf and AriZona Iced Tea cases, this week’s New York Business Divorce highlights yet another interesting fair value contest, decided by Justice Carolyn Demarest, involving a battle of forensic accounting and valuation experts over the alleged skimming of millions in cash receipts at a restaurant.
Continue Reading Restaurant’s Cash-Skimming Majority Owners Forced to Buy Out Minority Shareholder or Face Dissolution