If Sisyphus were a judge, he’d be assigned the Fuks case. Fuks began on December 26, 1996. Fire up your mental time machine, travel back in time, and picture what was going on in your life those many years ago....more
Closely-held business entities come in all shapes and sizes. By definition, under Partnership Law § 10, it takes “two or more” owners to form a general partnership. But corporations and LLCs have no such impediment, ranging...more
5/17/2024
/ Board Members ,
Breach of Duty ,
Business Entities ,
Business Litigation ,
Business Ownership ,
Corporate Governance ,
Derivative Suit ,
Dispute Resolution ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Limited Liability Company (LLC) ,
Partnerships ,
Shareholders
Parallel business divorce proceedings in the same or different courts alleging overlapping or duplicative claims are common.
When it occurs, judges must often determine whether to dispose of one so the other may proceed...more
1/8/2024
/ Breach of Duty ,
Business Disputes ,
Business Divorce ,
Business Litigation ,
Conversion ,
Corporate Waste ,
CPLR ,
Divorce ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Gross Negligence ,
Judicial Dissolution ,
Limited Liability Company (LLC) ,
NY Supreme Court ,
Property Ownership
Misappropriation of corporate opportunity is one of our favorite, most frequently blogged topics on New York Business Divorce. A special kind of breach of fiduciary duty, the corporate opportunity doctrine holds that...more
Occasionally, we come across court cases in which the majority owners so egregiously mistreated their minority co-owners that it’s difficult not to write about it — if only as a lesson in what not to do to separate oneself as...more
Do New York’s Surrogate’s Courts have jurisdiction to compel an accounting related to a non-party limited liability company in which the decedent’s estate has only a minority interest?
...more
8/28/2023
/ Article III ,
Breach of Duty ,
Business Disputes ,
Business Divorce ,
Business Litigation ,
Closely Held Businesses ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Limited Liability Company (LLC) ,
Standing ,
Surrogate's Court ,
Trust Accounting
No corporate lawyer wants to get drawn into a nasty litigation between an entity’s owners. But the reality is that corporate and general counsel often find themselves unwittingly ensnared in business divorce cases. Sometimes...more
Litigants assert with growing frequency “faithless servant” claims in business divorce cases. New York’s faithless servant doctrine, and the legal standards governing faithless servant claims, emanate from two ancient...more
Litigated business breakups are often highly intense and emotional for the participants. The intensity and emotion multiply when the litigants are close family members....more
This important question of whether non-manager, minority limited liability company owners owe fiduciary duties continues to bedevil New York litigants and courts.
The prevailing state of the law remains unsettled, with...more
In shareholder derivative litigation, defendants occasionally argue that the plaintiff – who ostensibly sues on behalf of the company and its owners in a fiduciary capacity – has some form of conflict of interest with the...more
A year and a half ago, we blogged about a decision in which Bronx County Supreme Court Justice Llinet M. Rosado ruled that a shareholder’s alleged stock transfer through a bequest in his last will and testament was...more
6/27/2022
/ Business Divorce ,
Business Litigation ,
Business Ownership ,
Buy-Sell Agreements ,
Declaratory Judgments ,
Family Businesses ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Malicious Prosecution ,
Order to Show Cause ,
Ownership Interest ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Shareholders' Agreements ,
Stock Transfer Restrictions ,
Tortious Interference ,
Wills
You know you’re in big trouble if the post-trial decision in a lawsuit you filed begins like this:
“The court finds the plaintiff, Rowen Seibel, not credible. This is primarily because it appears he fabricated evidence...more
A number of lawsuits have percolated through New York’s courts over the past five years between Adam Max, son of world-renowned visual artist Peter Max, and Adam’s sister, Libra, over control and management of the family...more
5/23/2022
/ Breach of Duty ,
Business Disputes ,
Business Divorce ,
Business Judgment Rule ,
Derivative Suit ,
Exculpatory Clauses ,
Family Businesses ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Fine Art ,
Hostile Takeover ,
Negligence ,
Personal Liability
Two years ago, Peter Mahler wrote about a dissolution lawsuit by a female minority shareholder alleging that her male co-shareholders condoned a pattern of sexually offensive and demeaning conduct by a senior co-worker, which...more
11/29/2021
/ #MeToo ,
Breach of Duty ,
Business Divorce ,
Business Judgment Rule ,
Business Litigation ,
Closely Held Businesses ,
Corporate Culture ,
Corporate Waste ,
Derivative Complaint ,
Dissolution ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Harassment ,
Sexual Harassment ,
Shareholder Oppression ,
Summary Judgment
Last week, Peter Mahler blogged about a recent decision holding that a minority shareholder’s claim against its majority co-owners for breach of fiduciary duty in connection with a sale of the business to a third party...more
Oral agreements to form and operate business enterprises are a recurring subject of this blog. We’ve written many times, for example, about the comparative ease vis-a-vis other kinds of entities with which one can...more
3/15/2021
/ Breach of Duty ,
Business Divorce ,
Business Formation ,
Business Litigation ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Fraudulent Conveyance ,
Joint Venture ,
Operating Agreements ,
Oral Contracts ,
Partnership Agreements ,
Unjust Enrichment
In Jacobs v Cartalemi, now the leading case on the subject of LLC member withdrawal (which our firm had the pleasure of litigating), the Appellate Division – Second Department repeated a well-established principle of law:...more
In the famous case of Meinhard v Salmon, Justice Benjamin Cardozo wrote in lofty language that lawyers of maltreated business owners have loved to quote ever since that the duty of loyalty among closely-held business owners...more
7/7/2020
/ Appeals ,
Attorney's Fees ,
Breach of Duty ,
Calculation of Damages ,
Common Law Torts ,
Derivative Suit ,
Disgorgement ,
Duty of Loyalty ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Legal History ,
Self-Dealing
The ongoing coronavirus / COVID-19 pandemic has quite literally impacted everyone and everything in New York, including the courts, which were forced to temporarily cease non-essential functions. The result was a short-lived...more
Like business divorce, New York trusts and estates litigation (“T&E”) is a highly specialized niche of the law. T&E litigators have their own universe of substantive law, their own set of procedural rules – the Surrogate’s...more
9/3/2019
/ Breach of Duty ,
Business Disputes ,
Business Divorce ,
Business Ownership ,
Corporate Dissolution ,
Decedent Protection ,
Derivative Suit ,
Director Removal ,
Estate Planning ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Jurisdiction ,
Legitimate Business Interest ,
Surrogate's Court
Strict procedural rules apply to corporate dissolution proceedings in New York, a difficult truth learned the hard way by a five-time rejected, would-be dissolution petitioner in a recent decision by Bronx County Supreme...more
8/6/2019
/ Breach of Duty ,
Business Divorce ,
Conversion ,
Corporate Dissolution ,
Embezzlement ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Fraud ,
Holding Companies ,
Motion to Dismiss ,
Motion to Show Cause ,
White Collar Crimes
Two years ago, we wrote about a bitter rivalry between two brothers, James and Vincent Cortazar, over their ownership and management of a single-asset real estate enterprise, 47th Road LLC, which owned an apartment building...more
How can majority business owners legally rid themselves of a problematic minority owner? Not by transferring the business’s assets to another entity for no consideration. ...more
3/19/2018
/ Breach of Duty ,
Business Litigation ,
Corporate Conversions ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Fraudulent Conveyance ,
Freeze-Out Mergers ,
Limited Liability Company (LLC) ,
Limited Partnerships ,
Minority Shareholders ,
Summary Judgment ,
Transfer of Assets
The sudden death of Alexander Calderwood, the brilliant but troubled co-founder of the Ace brand of hotels, resulted in some fierce litigation between Calderwood’s estate and Calderwood’s LLC co-member over the nature of his...more
12/27/2017
/ Appeals ,
Business Ownership ,
Contract Terms ,
Decedent Protection ,
Declaratory Judgments ,
Delaware Limited Liability Company Act ,
Discovery ,
Dismissals ,
Estate Claims ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Limited Liability Company (LLC) ,
Operating Agreements ,
Real Party in Interest ,
Transfer of Interest ,
Wills