The restaurant business is tough enough without squabbling between co-owners. This week’s New York Business Divorce examines a recent case in which LLC members had a falling out over the ownership of a restaurant’s trademark and other disputes. …
Continue Reading Court Takes Ambiguity Off the Menu of Restaurant’s LLC Agreement

New York law imposes some strict limits on the ability of closely-held business owners and fiduciaries to recover advancement and indemnification of their legal fees from the entity in defense of derivative actions and other business divorce disputes. When advancement rights are abused, there are ways for minority owners to fight back. Read on in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading Can the Company Pay My Legal Fees? – Part Two

Last week, the Appellate Division affirmed an order dismissing an unusual LLC dissolution petition based on the death of one of its members — 11 years earlier. Get the full story in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading LLC Survives Member’s Death. Dissolution Petition Doesn’t.

Entering its fifth year of litigation featuring two rulings by the Appellate Division in 2017 and last week, the case of Rubin v Baumann is another example of LLCs that suffer from inadequate operating agreements. Learn more in this week’s New York Business Divorce. …
Continue Reading Operating Agreement Spawns Multiple Disputes Between 50/50 Members of Realty Holding LLC

In its ruling last week in Carr v Global Payments Inc., the Delaware Court of Chancery had to decide whether to reverse its prior order requiring advancement of a former corporate officer’s litigation expenses after the company subsequently amended its complaint in the underlying suit for the precise purpose of avoiding advancement. Find out what happened in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading Advance! Amend! Retreat!

Business divorce litigants ask all the time, “Can the company pay my legal fees?” In this week’s New York Business Divorce, the first in a two-part series, we take a look at ways in which closely-held business owners and managers may defend themselves with funds advanced or indemnified by the business.
Continue Reading Can the Company Pay My Legal Fees?

Is an LLC a nominal party in dissolution proceedings such that its citizenship can be ignored for purposes of securing diversity jurisdiction in federal court? Get the answer in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading LLCs as Nominal Parties in Dissolution Cases: An Uncertain Portal to Federal Court Jurisdiction

What do you get when you combine LLC membership interests determined by variable capital accounts with an off-the-shelf form operating agreement? Litigation, of course! Get the story in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading The Perils of Indeterminate LLC Membership Interests

Should the fair value award in a judicial dissolution proceeding, following the respondent’s election to purchase and an appraisal proceeding, be reduced by post-valuation date shareholder distributions? Find out in this week’s New York Business Divorce.
Continue Reading Post-Valuation Date Distributions: Should They Be Credited Against Fair Value Awards?

Law firms see more than their fair share of business divorce litigation. But what are the chances of lightning striking twice? In this week’s New York Business Divorce, read about a fascinating, post-trial decision in which an upstate law firm endured a bitter partnership breakup for the second time in a decade, with the same partner taking the opposite position in each lawsuit.
Continue Reading Lawyer Says, “I’m Not a Partner, No Wait, I am a Partner!” Which is It?