Bar Exam Toolbox Podcast Episode 167: Listen and Learn -- Direct and Derivative Actions (Corporations)
Board Diversity Podcast
Securities Litigation and Disclosure Issues
Podcast: CFTC Issues LIBOR Transition Relief for Swaps
While litigation risk is an unavoidable aspect of running a business, business owners can limit such risks with early planning. In this third installment of PilieroMazza’s blog series, “Managing Litigation Risk During the...more
To practitioners familiar with internal disputes involving closely held companies, the allegations in Lafayette Village Pub, LLC v. Burnham, 2025 NCBC 8, are nothing new. The member running the business (allegedly) made bad,...more
On February 27, 2025, Senator Bryan Hughes (R-Tyler) filed Senate Bill 29 (S.B. 29), proposing several corporate reforms designed to ensure that Texas remains the premier business-friendly jurisdiction in the nation. If...more
If you have ever been to the Flora-Bama, chances are you have passed by the Caribe Resort in Orange Beach, AL. The Caribe, like many beach resorts, is a condominium building containing individually owned residential units...more
My last few posts have been devoted to the Court of Appeal's opinion in Tuli v. Specialty Surgical Center of Thousand Oaks, LLC, 2024 WL 4499271 (Oct. 16, 2024). The case relates to the plaintiff's "decade-long litigation...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
Traditionally deployed to protect a corporation from its board’s imprudent investment or financial decision-making, in recent years shareholders have taken to bringing derivative actions on a corporation’s behalf for its...more
That was the interesting, infrequently-litigated question addressed in a recent decision by Manhattan Commercial Division Justice Melissa A. Crane. Simon v FrancInvest, S.A. (2023 NY Slip Op 32422[U] [Sup Ct, NY County...more
In the menagerie of closely held companies, those owned and controlled by 50/50 business partners pose unique benefits and challenges. On the benefit side, co-equal ownership and control can foster cooperation,...more
By: Jeffrey M. Haber The internal affairs doctrine is a “conflict of laws principle which recognizes that only one State should have the authority to regulate a corporation’s internal affairs—matters peculiar to the...more
Choice-of-law questions in shareholder derivative lawsuits venued in New York courts involving out-of-state or international entities can be confoundingly difficult, even for appeals court judges....more
Occasionally, we come across post-trial decisions with such scathing rebuke of one side that it’s difficult to imagine why the loser ever chose to take the case to trial. O’Mahony v Whiston is a perfect example....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
The pictured architectural rendering of the sunlit Kings County Supreme Courthouse at 360 Adams Street, completed in 1957, doesn’t quite capture the reality of its dour, hulking presence in downtown Brooklyn. Its design...more
In 2008, Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery — one of the many intellectual giants and gifted writers who’ve occupied seats on that bench — published an article in the Delaware Journal of...more
David F. Johnson presented his paper “Business Divorce: Minority Shareholder Rights In Texas” to the State Bar of Texas’s Business Disputes Course on September 2-3, 2021. This presentation addressed shareholder oppression...more
Massachusetts Superior Court BLS Finds No Duty to Disclose Alleged Preliminary Merger Discussions, Northern District of California Declines to Dismiss Oracle Fraud Class Action Suit, SCOTUS Hears Oral Argument in Goldman...more
BCL 626 governs shareholder derivative actions, or suits brought by individual shareholders on behalf of, and for injury to, the corporation. Subsection (e) provides that if the plaintiff—the individual shareholder asserting...more
Not for the first time, I find myself intrigued by the federal courts’ resistance to hearing state law claims for judicial dissolution of business entities where subject matter jurisdiction otherwise exists based on diversity...more
Much has been written about the pleading requirements unique to shareholder derivative lawsuits. For example, a derivative complaint must allege the plaintiff’s standing as a shareholder at all relevant times. Demand upon the...more
This top ten list summarizes significant decisions of the Delaware Supreme Court and the Delaware Court of Chancery over the past calendar year. Our criteria for selection are that the decision either changed the law in a...more