Episode 5: Business Divorce, Delaware Style
Episode 8: Minority Oppression in the LLC: Interview With Professor Douglas Moll
In 2022, The LLC Jungle covered the opinion Friend of Camden, Inc. v. Brandt in a post titled LLC Dissolution Vote Defeats Statutory Buyout. In the Friend of Camden case, the Court of Appeal held that an LLC membership vote...more
Delaware Chancery Court’s contractarian approach to all things LLC, embedded statutorily in Section 18-1101(b) of the Delaware LLC Act (“It is the policy of this chapter to give the maximum effect to the principle of freedom...more
Count ’em: At the time A sued B for judicial dissolution of one of their several jointly owned companies, there are not one, not two, not three, but eight pending lawsuits between the two 50/50 business partners who first...more
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
Some years are easier than others to select the most significant business divorce cases. In this, the 16th year I’ve published this top-10 list, the task is made especially difficult by a veritable flood of court decisions...more
I recently had the privilege of speaking to an audience of judges of the New York Supreme Court Commercial Division at Fordham Law School’s Eileen Bransten Institute on Complex Commercial Litigation. Naturally, the topic was...more
New York courts are not in the vanguard when it comes to devising less drastic, alternative remedies in LLC judicial dissolution cases. In their defense, there’s nothing in Article 7 of New York’s LLC Law that expressly...more
Potential client sits down with business divorce lawyer and says, “I’m a minority shareholder in XYZ Corp. I’ve been completely frozen out by the majority. Can you help me?” The lawyer says, “Absolutely. New York law gives...more
Dismissals for lack of standing are routine in business divorce cases. Examples abound on this blog. Litigation over standing to sue takes an outsized role in business divorce cases for many reasons....more
It’s been many years since our last pop quiz for all you business divorce aficionados. Time for another. See how many you get right before you read the answers...more
When two or more people become owners of a limited liability company and embody their relationship in an operating agreement, they usually see sunshine and rainbows in their future. They have an idea, they have a corporate...more
New York Business Corporation Law (“BCL”) sections 1104 and 1104-a permit shareholders holding a certain percentage of shares in a corporation to petition for judicial dissolution of that corporation....more
It seems a bit exaggerated to liken the deterioration of a relationship between 50/50 business partners to a fatal disease, but in the case of Pathology Associates of Ithaca, P.C., recently pronounced dead by act of judicial...more
Nine months ago, we wrote about a 20% shareholder, Alvin Clayton Fernandes, whose bare bones petition Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Frank P. Nervo found stated sufficient grounds to judicially dissolve a seemingly...more
In Pennsylvania, Manufactured Deadlocks are Unlikely to Trigger Judicial Dissolution - In disputes among the owners of a closely held company, involuntary judicial dissolution is the nuclear option....more
Since its legislative birthing in New York in 1994, the limited liability company has become the preferred choice of entity New York and across the country. Over the ensuing 15 years or so, New York’s lower courts struggled...more
I’m delighted to present our 15th annual list of the past year’s ten most significant business divorce cases. This year’s list includes decisions by New York’s trial and appellate courts concerning a smorgasbord of...more
It’s a bit of a stretch to suggest that King Solomon prophesied the standard for judicial dissolution of LLCs, but there it is: under New York’s judicially construed standard for involuntary dissolution under Section 702 of...more
The statutes authorizing judicial dissolution of Delaware LLCs (LLC Act § 18-802) and New York LLCs (LLC Law § 702) essentially are the same: the petitioner must show that it is no longer “reasonably practicable” to carry on...more
Most forms of California business entities have statutory buyout procedures allowing the company or its owners to avoid claims by a disgruntled owner for judicial dissolution by purchasing the disgruntled owner’s interest....more
Several prior LLC Jungle posts have explored the statutory buyout procedures established by California Corporations Code section 17703.03 and related statutes: a botched buyout - “fair value” vs. “fair market value” - ...more
The statutory right to judicial dissolution in California comes with a hook — the defendants can avoid dissolution by exercising a “buyout” procedure. This is true in both LLCs (Corporations Code section 17703.03) and...more
In my last post on this Blog, I explored a potential avenue for a debtor to maximize value from the sale of its membership interest in a limited liability company (“LLC”) in bankruptcy, notwithstanding restrictions on sale in...more
In Congel v Malfitano, New York’s highest court wrote that business partners are free to include in partnership contracts practically “any agreement they wish,” including about “the means by which a partnership will dissolve,...more
The National Rifle Association has long been a politically charged topic for its fans and critics. For those of you more interested in the politics of the NRA’s ongoing battle with New York’s Attorney General Letitia James,...more