Delaware law allows members and partners of limited liability companies (LLCs) and limited partnerships (LPs) to waive the fiduciary duties of their management in their LLC or LP agreements. When an LLC or LP is insolvent, however, the residual claimants of the entity are its creditors, who, unlike members and partners, are generally not parties to the LLC or LP agreement and therefore have not agreed to waive any otherwise applicable duties. That raises the question: Are there insolvency “limits” to the effectiveness of waivers of fiduciary duties? When the LLC or LP is insolvent, are fiduciary duty waivers still operative, or may creditors of the entities assert (either directly or derivatively) breach of fiduciary claims to the extent management fails to exercise reasonable diligence in looking out for the interests of creditors or the enterprise more broadly?
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