Owners of closely-held businesses, including family-owned companies, often agree to restrict the owners’ ability to later transfer their ownership interests to third parties. Such restrictions prevent one owner from selling his or her interest to a “stranger” with whom the remaining owners otherwise would not want to co-own or operate their business. These provisions also frequently require advance consent of the remaining owners before a sale to a third party or provide a right of first refusal through which the remaining owners may match the price offered for a departing owner’s interests before he or she sells to a third party. Transfer restriction clauses also sometimes provide exceptions for transfers to certain family members, such as an owner’s spouse or children, in order to provide continuity of ownership at least among the owners’ families. But what happens when a non-transferring owner does not want to do business with his departing co-owner’s children and refuses to acknowledge a transfer of ownership to them? A state appellate court in Illinois recently addressed such a situation in Kenny v. Fulton Associates, LLC.
Continue Reading Do You Need to Do Business with Your Co-Owner’s Children? It Depends on the Language of Your Agreements.