When a shareholder petitions for dissolution, many states have statutes allowing the corporation to respond by buying out the complaining shareholder. This week’s post takes a look at several recent decisions concerning buyout elections across the country.
Continue Reading A Cross-Country Road Trip of Elections to Purchase in Dissolution Proceedings
In this week’s New York Business Divorce, read about a rare decision considering whether to grant an untimely BCL 1118 buyout election and the unsavory consequence of the respondent’s delay: imposition of a million dollar bond.
Continue Reading The Worst of Both Worlds: Untimely Buyout Election Yields Full Merits Hearing and Huge Bond
In business divorce litigation, the expert appraisers often are the key witnesses. A recent PwC Study analyzing the success of challenges to expert appraisers inspires a deeper dive into some keystone cases where courts excluded the expert testimony of an appraiser.
Continue Reading Challenges to Expert Appraisers in Valuation Proceedings
How does one value a law firm’s caseload at dissolution? The litigation over the dissolution of Brown Chiari LLP has already made its mark on business divorce jurisprudence. As it approaches its sixth birthday, the case continues to deliver, with Erie County Commercial Division Justice Timothy J. Walker recently authoring two notable decisions concerning a partner’s interest in the firm’s substantial caseload at the time of its dissolution.
Continue Reading Disputes Abound When Law Firms Dissolve
This week’s New York Business Divorce treats valuation aficionados to summaries of four recent stock appraisal decisions that made it to the Supreme Court of four different states.
Continue Reading Recent Stock Valuation Decisions Reign “Supreme”
In this week’s New York Business Divorce, read about an unusual business valuation decision in a breach of contract case rendered by a court solely on papers pitting an expert against layperson, with the layperson successfully persuading the Court the entity had no value.
Continue Reading Valuation Decision Finds LLC “Worthless, Worthless, Worthless”
When valuing an owner’s interest in a closely-held company, the calculation and applicability of a discount for lack of marketability is among the most fertile grounds for sharp disagreement. One open question: should the DLOM account for any contractual restrictions on a controlling owner’s ability to transfer his or her control?
Continue Reading Fueling the DLOM Debate: Control Transfer Restrictions and the Discount for Lack of Marketability
If man’s first sin was eating the apple, a business valuator’s greatest sin is mixing apples and oranges. In Dieckman v. Regency GP, LP, Chancellor Bouchard denied the Plaintiff’s bid for $1.6 billion in damages, even after finding that the defendant general partner breached the partnership agreement’s implied duty of good faith and fair dealing. The decision rests on Chancellor Bouchard’s complete rejection of Plaintiff’s damages calculation on the grounds that it was akin to “comparing apples to oranges.”
Continue Reading General Partner Breached Implied Covenants in Partnership Agreement, but Plaintiff’s “Apples-to-Oranges” Calculation Dooms Bid for Damages
Former timeshare owners of the iconic Gurney’s Inn in Montauk, New York, who dissented from a cash-out merger suffered a reversal of fortune when, earlier this month, the Appellate Division, First Department, reversed the trial court’s determination of the fair value of their shares, finding that their appraiser’s evaluation of the resort property was “highly inflated.” Get the full story in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading Dissenting Shareholders’ Challenge to Appraisal of Famed East End Resort Hits Dead End
The phrase “naked expulsion clause” is not a biblical reference to Adam and Eve’s eviction from the Garden of Eden. It’s about a provision in an LLC agreement at the center of a recent ruling by the Appellate Division, Second Department, in a 10-year litigation saga involving a fractured family-owned business. This week’s New York Business Divorce has the story.
Continue Reading Court Enforces LLC Agreement’s “Naked” Expulsion Clause