Legal fees often should be awarded to a minority shareholder who is mistreated and oppressed by majority shareholders. The applicable statute allows the court’s discretion to a legal fee award in such a case. But it hardly ever happens. Why not? » Read More

There appears to be an uptick in the filing of meritless corporate shareholder and LLC member oppression claims in New Jersey.  Not everything that majority shareholders do that upsets a minority owner is worth spending legal fees to pursue.

When the only allegations one can make are a failure to keep an absentee shareholder fully informed of all business transactions, and a failure to obtain that minority shareholder’s consent to such transactions, that alone is rarely a recipe for successful litigation.  » Read More

Many shareholders contemplating getting a “business divorce” have put up with an intolerable situation for years, because they fear that filing a shareholder oppression lawsuit will somehow make matters even worse.  They might be partly correct in the short term.  But the long-term gains often outweigh temporary negatives. » Read More

I have written extensively about the difference between the law in New Jersey protecting a minority shareholder in a corporation, and the law protecting a minority member in a limited liability company (LLC).  Most lawyers practicing extensively in this area of law have long argued, and believed, that the statute protecting minority shareholders in a corporation from what is considered “shareholder oppression” does not apply to LLC’s (much as we may want it to).  » Read More