Idaho LLC Member Owes No Fiduciary Duty to LLC's Manager
The Idaho Supreme Court has again examined the fiduciary duties of LLC members, in High Valley Concrete, L.L.C. v. Sargent, 2010 WL 2681188 (Idaho July 8, 2010). Last year the Idaho Supreme Court analyzed fiduciary duties between LLC members in Bushi v. Sage Health Care, PLLC, which I discussed here. In Bushi the court concluded that managing members of an LLC owe each other fiduciary duties.
In High Valley the LLC’s manager claimed that the sole member owed a fiduciary duty to the manager. High Valley was organized by Cary Sargent and Doyle Beck as an Idaho LLC. They initially planned for Beck to have a 51% interest and Sargent to have a 49% interest in the company. Ownership certificates for both were drawn up and signed, and each made his initial contribution to the LLC. Beck then requested that all of the LLC units be issued to him so that he could have the tax losses until the company became profitable – “then we’ll clear up - we’ll change the paperwork back.” High Valley, 2010 WL 2681188 at *1. Sargent agreed to the change, so Beck became the sole member and Sargent the manager.
Sargent was later fired, and the LLC sued Sargent for conversion, fraud, and breach of fiduciary duty. Sargent, the manager, in turn sued Beck, the sole member, for breach of fiduciary duty. Sargent claimed that he was damaged by the loss of his contributions to High Valley. At trial the LLC was awarded judgment on its claims against Sargent, and Sargent was awarded judgment on his fiduciary duty claim against Beck. Beck appealed.
The court began by noting that fiduciary relationships usually involve one party placing property or authority in the hands of another, or being authorized to act on behalf of the other. Id. at *4. The court described a fiduciary as one who is in a superior position to the other, where the other reposes special trust and confidence in the fiduciary. Examples include partners, principal and agent, attorney and client, and the executor and beneficiary of an estate. Id. at *5. Arm’s-length business transactions, standing alone, do not give rise to a fiduciary relationship.
The court had previously held in Bushi that LLC managing members owe each other fiduciary duties. But the High Valley court found that Sargent was not a member. Sargent had the opportunity to obtain a membership interest at the time of the LLC’s formation, but instead he allowed Beck to become the LLC’s only member. Bushi was therefore not applicable.
None of the other indicia of a fiduciary relationship were present. There was no indication that Sargent had any reason to believe that Beck was acting in Sargent’s interest. And although Beck had discussed reinstating Sargent’s 49%, Sargent testified that Beck was not holding Sargent’s 49% for him. Finding none of the control, property transfer, or “superior position” attributes of a fiduciary relationship to be present, the court held that no fiduciary relationship existed.
What is novel about this case is the role reversal. Usually members raise fiduciary duty claims against managers, not the other way round, as in High Valley. The managers, after all, are the ones in control of the LLC. It’s that control of the other party’s assets or business that lies at the heart of most fiduciary relationships.
It’s unclear from the court’s opinion what was the basis of the jury’s finding of a breach of fiduciary duty by Beck. The jury may have believed that Beck’s initial statements about later re-establishing Sargent’s 49% amounted to a sort of trust arrangement, a promise to hold the 49% for Sargent and to later restore the 49% to him. But the Idaho Supreme Court relied on the following bit of Sargent’s testimony:
Q. Did you understand that Beck was going to hold your 49 percent for you?
A. No. I understood that I – that the ownership would remain the same, that he was just doing it for his personal tax purposes or his business’ tax purposes.
Id. at *1. That “no” answer appears to have torpedoed Sargent’s case. I suspect that with further questioning by his counsel, Sargent could have made clear that there was more to the arrangement than his brief answer indicated. But that’s the thing about trial testimony – you don’t get a second crack at it after the trial is over.
Kansas Applies Delaware Law -- Assignee of LLC Interest Is Not Automatically Admitted as a Member
LLC members have the right to receive allocations of profits, losses, and distributions (economic rights) and to participate in the LLC’s management. The specifics are determined by the state LLC statute and the LLC agreement. See, e.g., Del. Code ann. tit. 6, §§ 18-503, 18-504, 18-402. The member can also assign its interest in the LLC, unless the LLC agreement provides otherwise. Id. § 18-702. But even if an LLC member assigns its entire interest in the LLC to a third party, the assignee will not necessarily have all the rights of the assignor.
An assignee of an LLC interest will have the economic rights of the assigning member, but the assignee will not have the right to participate in the management of the LLC or to exercise any rights or powers of a member (other than the economic rights) unless the LLC agreement so provides. That is the rule in Delaware and in most other states. See, e.g., id.; Wash. Rev. Code § 25.15.250.
In Rowe v. Voyager HospiceCare Holdings, LLC, 231 P. 3d 1085, No. 101,661, Kan. App. Unpub. LEXIS 452 (Kan. Ct. App. June 18, 2010) (unpublished, mem., per curiam), the Kansas Court of Appeals dealt with a challenge to the validity of an assignment of a member’s interest in a Delaware LLC. Mark Rowe assigned all of his LLC member interest to his wife. The LLC refused to recognize the transfer because it did not consent to Rowe’s wife becoming a member, so Rowe filed a lawsuit for a declaration that he was entitled to make the transfer.
The court noted that Delaware law applied, although the opinion never discusses the Delaware LLC Act. The court treated the dispute as one purely of contract interpretation. Because the Delaware Act’s default rules on assignment of LLC interests can all be overridden by the terms of the LLC agreement, the ruling would have been unchanged even if the court had reviewed and analyzed the Act’s provisions.
Rowe’s LLC agreement barred members from assigning or transferring their interests in the LLC without the prior consent of the LLC’s Board, except for transfers within a Family Group. Rowe’s transfer to his wife was within his Family Group and his wife had agreed in writing to be bound by the LLC agreement, as it required, so the court found that the assignment was permitted by the LLC agreement.
The LLC agreement also provided that an assignee “shall become a substituted Member entitled to all the rights of a Member if and only if the assignor gives the assignee such right and the Board has granted its prior written consent to such assignment and substitution.” The court found the requirement of Board approval to admit the transferee as a substituted member to be a separate requirement that applied even for transfers within a Family Group. Since the Board had not approved of Rowe’s assignment to his wife, she did not become a substituted member. The transfer of the economic rights of Rowe’s LLC interest was valid but did not result in his wife being admitted as a member and having the governance and other rights of a member.
The Court of Appeals concluded by affirming the trial court, holding that Rowe’s assignment of his interest in the LLC was not barred by the LLC agreement, but that his wife only succeeded to the economic rights and was not admitted as a member.
It is an odd thing, this split between economic rights on the one hand and voting, management, and other rights on the other hand. Shares of stock are not treated that way – the buyer of a share will automatically be able to vote the share. Shares of stock are presumed to be fully alienable. Corporate articles or bylaws may limit the transferability of stock, but that is uncommon.
Of course an LLC agreement could make the member interests freely transferrable, including management and voting rights, but that is rarely done. Although courts often view LLCs as similar to corporations, in this one respect the partnership heritage of LLCs looms large. In partnerships the presumption historically was that partnerships were close relationships, where partners pick their co-partners and control the admission of new partners.
That approach is reflected in the state LLC statutes. In fact, the first LLC statute for many states was based on the state’s existing limited partnership statute. I know from lawyers who were involved in the process that that was true in the case of the Washington LLC Act, RCW Chapter 25.15.
Implied Duty of Good Faith and Fair Dealing Does Not Impose a Confidentiality Obligation on Delaware LLC Members
Many limited liability company agreements do not include confidentiality provisions. That may be because the company expects to have agreements with its employees and consultants that include confidentiality obligations. Or it may be that the parties and their lawyers simply don’t address it in the formation of the LLC. In any event, members who invest in an LLC but don’t work for it are in many cases bound only by an LLC agreement with no confidentiality restrictions.
LLC managers are sometimes surprised to discover that their LLC agreement does not obligate the company’s members to hold the LLC’s information in confidence. This may become an issue when there is a dispute with a member and the member requests information from the company. Many state LLC statutes give members the right to obtain certain records and information from the LLC, and the state acts don’t usually require that the member keep the information confidential. E.g., Del. Code Ann. tit. 6, § 305; Wash. Rev. Code § 25.15.135.
A canny LLC manager might logically ask, “Isn’t there any sort ofimplied obligation that the member keep company information confidential?” Many states imply a duty of good faith and fair dealing in contracts, either by statute or as part of the state’s common law. E.g., Del. Code Ann. tit. 6, § 18-1101(e) ( limited liability company agreement may not limit or eliminate liability for any act or omission that constitutes a bad faith violation of the implied contractual covenant of good faith and fair dealing); Badgett v. Sec. State Bank, 116 Wn.2d 563, 569, 807 P.2d 356 (1991) (there is in every contract an implied duty of good faith and fair dealing).
Earlier this year the Delaware Court of Chancery dealt with a claim that the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing imposed confidentiality obligations on an LLC member. Kuroda v. SPJS Holdings, L.L.C., No. 4030-CC, 2010 Del. Ch. LEXIS 57 (Del. Ch. Mar. 16, 2010). The case was complex. As the court said:
This is round two of a bout between sophisticated, experienced parties who have woven a complex web of overlapping contracts, agreements, and duties that the Court must now untangle and interpret in order to make sense of who among these sophisticated parties owes whom what. Plaintiff seeks money he alleges defendants owe to him pursuant to a limited liability company agreement.
…
The counterclaims include misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and breach of contract.
Kuroda, 2010 Del. Ch. LEXIS 57, at *1, 2.
Kuroda provided consulting services to an investment firm LLC in which he was a non-managing member. He later left the company, started a competing investment firm, and allegedly used investor lists and market strategies from the first company in his own business. Francis Pileggi has provided a compete synopsis of the case here, and Larry Ribstein has commented on the court’s treatment of the fiduciary duty elements of the case here.
Kuroda was a party to a consulting agreement with the LLC containing confidentiality provisions. The defendants, however, did not base their trade secret misappropriation claim on the consulting agreement because it would have required arbitration in Japan. The defendants instead argued that the LLC agreement’s implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing imposed a confidentiality obligation on Kuroda.
The court described the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing as inhering in every contract, and requiring a contract party to refrain from arbitrary or unreasonable conduct that would prevent the other party to the contract from receiving the “fruits of the bargain.” Kuroda, 2010 Del. Ch. LEXIS 57, at *39. The court noted that the implied covenant does not constitute a free-floating duty on contracting parties, but instead is used to ensure that the parties’ reasonable expectations are fulfilled. The implied covenant has a narrow purpose and is therefore only rarely invoked successfully. Kuroda, 2010 Del. Ch. LEXIS 57, at *39, 40.
The court refused to invoke the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing to create a confidentiality obligation in the LLC agreement. Noting that the defendants used confidentiality provisions in other documents related to the LLC, but not in the LLC agreement itself, the court said “any use of the implied covenant to insert a contractual duty of confidentiality into the LLC Agreement would be an override of the express terms of that agreement.” Kuroda, 2010 Del. Ch. LEXIS 57, at *40, 41.
An LLC manager seeking to prevent a member from disclosing or using the LLC’s information might wonder whether state trade secret law would impose a duty of confidentiality on the member. In most states the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (USTA) will apply. (According to the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, 47 states have adopted the USTA.)
Business people often think that any private or semi-private information about an LLC, its members or its business is legally protected. The USTA does not reach that far, however. For there to be an actionable misappropriation under the USTA, the member must have acquired the information by improper means, or acquired the information under circumstances giving rise to a duty to maintain its secrecy or limit its use. Del. Code Ann. tit. 6, § 2001. A non-managing LLC member may have been legitimately exposed to the LLC’s information, or may have obtained the information from the LLC by making a request under the state statute, and without a contractual commitment there will not be a duty. The result is different if the member is a manager, because then the manager’s fiduciary obligations will create a duty to not disclose the LLC’s information.
Even if the member is a managing member, not all LLC information will be a protectable trade secret. To be a trade secret under the USTA, the information must derive independent economic value from not being generally known to, and not being readily ascertainable by proper means by, other persons who can obtain economic value from its disclosure or use. It must also be the subject of efforts that are reasonable under the circumstance to maintain its secrecy. Id.
So, trade secret law may not protect the LLC’s information unless the members have a contractual obligation not to disclose or use the information. And the Kuroda case underscores the need for express confidentiality provisions in the LLC agreement. Lawyers who assist clients in the formation of LLCs should consider adding confidentiality provisions to their LLC checklists and form agreements.
New York Addresses Fiduciary Duties of LLC Organizers
The New York Appellate Division recently applied the fiduciary rules for corporate organizers to the organizers of LLCs, and found the LLC organizers to be fiduciaries of the investors they solicited to become members. Roni LLC v. Arfa, No. 1758, 601224/07, 2010 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 4613 (June 3, 2010).
The defendants were the promoters and organizers of several New York LLCs. The organizers entered into real estate purchase agreements, and then assigned the agreements to the LLCs after their formation. The organizers, who were the initial members of the LLCs, solicited outside investors to purchase member interests in the LLCs. The investors’ funds were then used by the LLCs to purchase the real properties.
Subsequently the investors sued the organizers, claiming that the organizers concealed brokerage commissions they received from property sellers and mortgage brokers. The investors alleged that the undisclosed commissions inflated the purchase prices of the real estate by at least $6.5 million.
The investors asserted claims for waste, breach of fiduciary duty, actual fraud, constructive fraud and an accounting. The organizers moved to dismiss for failure to state a cause of action and for failure to plead actual fraud and breach of fiduciary duty with specificity. The trial court denied the motion and upheld all claims, other than the claim for waste. The organizers appealed the dismissal of the motion, contending that the investors had not alleged adequate facts to establish that the organizers were their fiduciaries.
The key to the court’s decision was its extension of the corporate rule to LLCs. The court noted that “[i]t is well settled that both before and after a corporation comes into existence, its promoter acts as the fiduciary of that corporation and its present and anticipated shareholders.” Id. at **5. From there it was a short jump to LLCs: “By extension, the organizer of a limited liability company is a fiduciary of the investors it solicits to become members.” Id. at **5-6. As fiduciaries, the organizers were obligated to fully disclose the organizers’ interests that might affect the LLC and its members, including the organizers’ profits from organizing the LLC. Id. at **6. The court held that the investors had therefore stated a cause of action by alleging that the defendant organizers had failed to disclose the commissions they received from sellers and mortgage brokers, which inflated the purchase prices of the LLCs’ real estate. Id.
The organizers also defended on grounds that the investors had failed to allege that the undisclosed commissions were material, that the investors justifiably relied on the organizers’ silence, and that the investors were damaged. The court made short work of those defenses. Damages had been alleged, said the court. And because the case was an appeal of the trial court’s denial of the plaintiffs’ motion to dismiss, the issues of materiality and reliance could not be resolved as a matter of law, but would have to be resolved at trial. Id. at **7-8.
The Roni court’s resolution of the fiduciary duties of LLC organizers is an example of legal reasoning by analogy. The court looked at the rule that applied to organizers of corporations, and apparently deciding that LLCs are similar enough to corporations, applied the corporate rule to LLCs.
As the law of LLCs develops, state courts are frequently called upon to decide novel LLC issues. In doing so the courts often look to the law applicable in the analogous corporate context. Examples that I have written on previously include New York (de facto corporations, here), Colorado (creditors’ claims against directors, here), Oregon (requirements for derivative suits, here), and Michigan (officer liability for corporate torts, here).
The Roni court did not explain the principles underlying the corporate rule that it relied upon, but simply applied it “[b]y extension.” Id. at **5-6. The court’s implicit recognition of a close analogy between corporations and LLCs was presumably based on the entity nature of each and the similar roles played by the organizers of each type of entity.
Sometimes an LLC's Signature on a Contract Can Result in a Member's Personal Liability
Most business people know that if they want to avoid personal liability when they sign a contract on behalf of an LLC, they should use the name of the LLC and their title. A typical example would be:
ACME LLC
______________________
By: John Smith, Member [For a member-managed LLC]
But what’s the result if language in the contract states that the signing member is personally liable? In Losh Family, LLC v. Kertzman, 155 Wn. App. 458, 228 P.3d 793 (April 12, 2010), the Washington Court of Appeals recently ruled that the language in the contract can overrule the form of signature.
William and Teresa Grover formed Grover International, LLC in 2005 and shortly thereafter acquired a business. In connection with the acquisition they received an assignment of the seller’s real estate lease. Their LLC signed the assignment using a conventional corporate style of signature, as “Grover International, LLC by William Grover member.” Losh Family, LLC, 155 Wn. App. at 461.
So far so good. But the lease assignment said that the lease was assigned to “William and Teresa Grover as individuals, dba Grover International, LLC” (“dba” of course being the customary abbreviation for “doing business as”). Id. The lease assignment in fact referred five different times to the assignee as “William and Teresa Grover as individuals, dba Grover International, LLC.” Id. at 463.
In 2006 the Grovers sold their business, and the new buyer later defaulted on the lease. The owner of the real estate sued the Grovers, the LLC, their seller and their buyer. The trial court ruled on summary judgment that all defendants were liable jointly and severally, including William and Teresa Grover individually.
The Court of Appeals expeditiously determined that the language in the assignment referred to the Grovers personally and that the LLC’s signature did not limit the assignment’s imposition of personal liability on the Grovers. The court referred to the “long established principle that where an agreement contains language binding the individual signer, ‘additional descriptive language added to the signature does not alter the signer’s personal obligation.’” Id. at 464 (quoting Wilson Court Ltd. v. Tony Maroni’s, Inc., 134 Wn.2d 692, 700, 952 P.2d 590 (1998)).
The Losh fact pattern is the sort that lawyers involved in mergers and acquisitions hate to see. Inconsistent agreements tend to be disputed and to yield unpredictable results. The Losh contract was seriously inconsistent, and under one interpretation the Grovers would be personally liable for a lease obligation under a document that they signed only in a representative capacity. And indeed, so ruled the court.
Mr. Grover likely took no consolation from the court’s admonition that if he “did not want to be personally bound on the assignment, he should have insisted on the elimination of the language within the agreement that designated the assignee as ‘William and Teresa Glover as individuals’” (which ignores the balance of the phrase, “dba Grover International, LLC”). Id.
It is puzzling that the Losh court did not analyze the conflicting language in the contract as an ambiguity that would allow the admission of extrinsic evidence. The court ignored the large body of law which recognizes that an ambiguous or contradictory contract may be clarified by the admission of extrinsic evidence to determine the parties’ intent. E.g., Berg v. Hudesman, 115 Wn.2d 657, 801 P.2d 222 (1990).
The court also ignored the fact that the contract’s identification of the parties was not a completely clear statement that personal liability was intended. The contract language did not refer simply to the Grovers individually, but also referred to the Grovers doing business as Grover International, LLC, which at the time was an existing LLC. The phrase “doing business as” is usually used only for situations where a corporation or LLC does business under an alternate name. In Losh, however, the dba referred to an existing and separate entity, not just an alternate name for the Grovers.
The court’s ruling illustrates how simple inconsistencies in a contract quicken the blood of gimlet-eyed litigators and lead to arguable judicial decisions.
Who Are the Owners of an LLC?
A lender took an assignment of a 25% interest in an LLC in exchange for the lender’s cancellation of the LLC’s debt, but the lender was never admitted as a member. Later the lender agreed to sell his “25 percent ownership interest,” but his buyer defaulted and claimed that the lender did not have an ownership interest in the LLC.
Ownership of property is covered in a first-year law school class because it is a fundamental legal concept, but sometimes the application of even fundamental concepts can be troublesome. In this case the Kentucky Supreme Court overruled the Court of Appeals and held that in the context of an LLC, “ownership” and membership in the LLC are synonymous – that the owner of an economic interest in the LLC does not have an “ownership interest” if he is not admitted as a member. Spurlock v. Begley, No. 2009-SC-000050-DG, 2010 Ky. LEXIS 80 (Ky. Apr. 22, 2010).
Tate Begley loaned $75,000 to Caribou Coal Mining Processing, LLC (Caribou), in exchange for Caribou’s promissory note. The note was unpaid and went into default. Robert Griffin, the founder of Caribou, orally promised to give Begley a 25% interest in Caribou in exchange for the $75,000 debt. Begley and Ben Spurlock then entered into a one-paragraph written agreement (Sale Agreement) in which Spurlock agreed to pay Begley $70,000 in exchange for Begley’s “25 percent ownership of Caribou Coal Processing LLC.” Spurlock, 2010 Ky. LEXIS 80, at *8.
A year later Caribou was insolvent and had ceased operations, and Begley sued Spurlock for non-payment on the Sale Agreement. Spurlock defended on the grounds of failure of consideration, contending that Begley did not hold an ownership interest in Caribou. At trial the jury found that Griffin had indeed transferred a 25% ownership interest to Begley and ruled for Begley on his Sale Agreement with Spurlock. The Court of Appeals affirmed.
The Kentucky LLC Act uses the term “members” rather than “owners,” as do most other state statutes. Ky. Rev. Stat. § 275.015(16). If there is no written operating agreement, a person acquiring an interest directly from the LLC becomes a member only if all members consent in writing, and a person acquiring an interest by assignment from a member becomes a member only if a majority in interest of the members consent in writing. Ky. Rev. Stat. §§ 275.275(1), 275.265(1).
If the assignee is not admitted as a member, the membership interest becomes divided. The economic rights are held by the assignee and the governance rights are retained by the assignor, who continues to be a member. Ky. Rev. Stat. § 275.255(1)(d). If the members consent and the assignee is admitted, the transfer of the membership interest conveys both the economic and the governance rights. Spurlock, 2010 Ky. LEXIS 80, at *7.
After reviewing the Act’s provisions, the court concluded:
This, then, leads to the conclusion that simply acquiring economic rights does not, in and of itself, equate to “ownership” or “membership” in the limited liability company.
. . .
… In the context of limited liability companies, “ownership” and “membership” are synonymous.
Id. At *7-8. The court then reasoned that because Begley acquired only an economic interest and was not admitted as a member, he did not acquire an ownership interest in the LLC. Spurlock therefore had a valid defense of failure of consideration under the Sale Agreement.
The court’s analysis makes sense if one understands “ownership” in the sense of “[t]he complete dominion, title, or proprietary right in a thing or claim.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1260 (4th ed. 1968). After all, Begley did not have all of the rights of a member – he had the economic rights but not the governance rights. And if the word “membership” is used only for a person who is both admitted as an LLC member and who holds all of the associated economic rights, then the court’s conflating of ownership and membership is correct.
But as the Spurlock court itself pointed out, a member who transfers its economic interest to a non-admitted assignee continues to be a member even though it has no remaining economic rights. Presumably the court would not have found Begley to have “ownership” if he had been admitted as a member but had assigned his interest to a non-admitted assignee, leaving Begley a member holding governance rights and no economic interest. In that scenario, LLC membership would not equate to ownership.
More careful drafting of the Sale Agreement could have changed the result in this case. If the Sale Agreement had referred to an “economic interest” or simply an “interest,” rather than an “ownership interest,” or if it had included language otherwise clarifying that Begley had not been admitted as a member, then Spurlock would have had no defense. The court did not examine the intent of the parties; it simply construed any ambiguity in the phrase “ownership interest” against Begley because he drafted and prepared the Sale Agreement. Spurlock, 2010 Ky. LEXIS 80, at *8-9..
The court also could have been more careful with its language. Its generalized equating of “ownership” and “membership” reaches too far by ignoring the fact that an LLC can have a member with no economic interest. Words are slippery and should be used carefully. The question, as Humpty Dumpty said to Alice, is which is to be master, the words or their speaker.
Time Is Running Out to Defer Income Recognition from Debt-Equity Exchanges
Restructures of financially distressed firms often involve debt-equity exchanges. The concept is straightforward: the company issues equity to its lenders in exchange for their cancellation of some of the company’s debt. The company’s debt burden and interest payment expenses are reduced and its balance sheet is strengthened.
On the downside, the company’s equity holders are diluted, often substantially. The alternative to the restructure, of course, may be a chapter 7 bankruptcy in which the equity owners are wiped out. Lenders don’t usually want to take equity in their debtors, but depending on its security position, a lender may view a debt-equity exchange as a preferable alternative to liquidation or as a necessary component of a chapter 11 case. The exchange will provide the lender with upside on the equity it receives, assuming the company survives and ultimately prospers.
The details of a debt-equity exchange are complex. Multiple classes of debt and equity may be involved. The company and the debtors will need to agree on valuations of different classes of debt and equity, on how much debt and how much equity to exchange, and on the classes and amounts of equity to be exchanged. And as with any major corporate transaction, the tax consequences have to be considered.
If the amount of debt that is cancelled exceeds the fair value of the equity issued in exchange for the debt, the company will recognize cancellation of debt (COD) income in the amount of the excess. I.R.C. § 61(a)(12), § 108(e)(8). If the debtor is an LLC, the equity may consist of either a capital or a profits interest in the LLC.
The Code provides several exceptions to recognition of COD income, including an insolvency exception. If the company issuing the equity is insolvent or in a title 11 bankruptcy case immediately before discharge of its debt, it will not recognize COD income. I.R.C. § 108(a). The tax obligation is deferred and not completely eliminated, because what would otherwise be COD income is applied to reduce several of the company’s tax attributes, beginning with its net operating loss carryovers. I.R.C. § 108(b).
The tax rules on debt-equity exchanges apply to corporations and to LLCs in the same way, with one significant exception. LLCs are taxed as partnerships and LLC income is passed through to the members. COD income of an insolvent LLC will therefore be allocated to the members, but they cannot use the § 108 insolvency exception based solely on the LLC’s insolvency. The members have the income, but the LLC has the insolvency. Not unless the member itself is insolvent can it claim the insolvency exception.
In many cases the member will not be insolvent, in which case the LLC’s COD income will be included in the member’s income unless any of several other exceptions apply to that member. And if the LLC is insolvent, there won’t be any cash distributions to the members to cover their tax bill from the COD income.
LLC members caught in this situation may be able to defer COD income from a debt-equity exchange, if the exchange occurs before the end of this year. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 added a new Code § 108(i), which allows taxpayers incurring COD income as a result of debt-equity exchanges occurring during 2009 or 2010 to elect to defer that income.
The deferred income will be included in the taxpayer’s income ratably over five years, starting in 2014 and ending in 2018. The deferral election is made by attaching a statement to the taxpayer’s return for the taxable year in which the debt-equity exchange takes place. The deferral is accelerated into any year in which the taxpayer’s death, sale of the LLC interest, or cessation of doing business occurs.
The deferral will be attractive for most LLC members receiving COD income. Whether it’s the right choice will depend on the taxpayer’s individual situation, and on what happens to income tax rates during 2014 through 2018.
But the clock is running down on this deferral opportunity. If an LLC restructures with a debt-equity exchange that closes after December 31, 2010, its members will no longer be able to elect the deferral. As the end of 2010 approaches, LLCs contemplating debt-equity exchanges should consider timing the transaction to ensure closing before the year end, in order to preserve the members’ ability to elect the deferral.
Amendment of Operating Agreement by Less Than All Members
LLC operating agreements sometimes need to be amended. Members may come and go, more capital may be necessary, or the timing of distributions may need to be changed, for example. If the agreement is to be amended, normal principles of contract law will require that all the members agree.
Sometimes, however, the members will agree in advance that future amendments will require less than unanimity. For example, an operating agreement might provide: “This Agreement may be amended in any respect by the affirmative vote of Members holding a majority of the Units.” Or a supermajority of two-thirds or 80% might be required. This approach is used to provide flexibility, since otherwise a recalcitrant member holding a small ownership percentage could veto necessary change or demand concessions from the company for approving the change.
In some cases a majority-vote provision like the one quoted will include limits on the majority’s ability to amend, such as a prohibition on changing any member’s interest in profits, losses or distributions, without unanimous approval. But what if no limits are included? Are there any limits on the power of the majority to amend the operating agreement?
The California Court of Appeals held last week that there are limits. Abbey v. Fortune Drive Assocs., LLC, No. A124684, 2010 Cal. App. LEXIS 2860 (Cal. Ct. App. Apr. 20, 2010) (unpublished).
Fortune Drive Associates, LLC was a Delaware limited liability company. Brandon Abbey was a member and held a 3% interest. John Sheputis was a member, held a majority interest and was the sole manager. A dispute over a proposed restructuring of the LLC developed between Sheputis and Abbey, and Sheputis concluded it was in the best interest of the members to involuntarily terminate and buy out Abbey’s interest in the LLC.
The LLC’s operating agreement did not authorize the involuntary buyout of a member’s interest. But the operating agreement did provide that it could be amended by a majority vote of the LLC’s member interests. So, Sheputis prepared an amendment that:
- authorized the termination of a member upon the vote of three-fourths of the LLC’s member interests;
- specified the financial terms of the LLC’s buyout of the terminated member’s interest; and
- required that any dispute over the buyout price or any other matter related to the termination be resolved by binding arbitration.
Prior to the amendment, the operating agreement simply provided that any lawsuit relating to the agreement had to be filed in San Francisco.
With no prior notice to Abbey, Sheputis obtained the consent of all members other than Abbey to the amendment and to Abbey’s termination. Abbey filed a lawsuit, the LLC commenced arbitration over the value of Abbey’s interest in the LLC, and Abbey sought a stay of the arbitration and a declaration that he was not bound by the arbitration clause of the amendment.
The court looked to earlier California law on the enforceability of amendments to bank credit card agreements, including Badie v. Bank of America, 79 Cal.Rptr.2d 273 (Cal. Ct. App.1998). Under the prior cases, said the Abbey court, a party with the unilateral right to modify a contract does not have carte blanche to make any kind of change merely by following the prescribed procedure. Abbey, 2010 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 2860, at *13. (The court applied California law because the parties agreed that California law applied to the issue of contract interpretation.)
The court determined that for a non-unanimous amendment to be enforceable against a non-consenting member, the general subject of the amendment must have been anticipated when the agreement was entered into. The court found that three distinct constraints applied: (1) the intent of the parties, (2) whether the terms of the agreement were sufficiently definite, and (3) the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.
In analyzing the amendment to Fortune Drive’s operating agreement, the court focused primarily on the intent of the parties. The court noted that although the amendment was written in general terms, it was adopted to deal with the specific situation of Abbey’s termination, limited the types of claims Abbey could bring, and restricted the recovery he could receive. The court found that no member could have had that type of amendment in mind when they agreed that a majority of the member interests could amend the agreement.
While the members might have anticipated adopting arbitration in a manner that was not prejudicial to their individual interests, it is inconceivable [that] any member intended to authorize the majority’s adoption of an arbitration provision that would benefit other members at the expense of his or her own interests. Yet that is what the Third Amendment’s arbitration provision would accomplish in any dispute with Abbey.
Abbey, at *19.
The court concluded that this particular amendment was beyond the intent of the parties when they agreed to majority amendments of the operating agreement, and that therefore it would not be enforced. The court said it did not have to reach the questions of whether the amendment violated the members’ fiduciary duties and the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.
Operating agreement provisions that allow amendments by less than all of the members are useful because they allow the LLC to deal with new situations without being held hostage by the demands of a minority member, so long as the necessary majority approves the change. But Abbey shows that there are limits to the kinds of non-unanimous amendment that can be made. An amendment that is targeted at a dispute with a non-consenting member and that significantly disadvantages that member is not likely to be enforceable.
More broadly, amendments that affect all the members in the same way also may be unenforceable if the general subject matter of the amendment was not anticipated when the contract was entered into. That’s a broader constraint, and its limits may be difficult to predict for a particular agreement and amendment.
The Abbey court hung its opinion on the intent of the parties and said it did not have to reach the question of whether the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing was violated. The obvious unfairness of the Abbey amendment suggests that analyzing the amendment under the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing would have led to the same result – invalidation of the amendment.
Substance Over Form - LLC "Distributions" Are Recognized as Product Sales
Every so often a case comes along where you read the opinion and say to yourself, “Did they really think this would work?” Meadowsweet Dairy, LLC v. Hooker, Commissioner of Agriculture and Markets, No. 1868, 2010 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 1841 (Mar. 11, 2010) is one of those cases.
Steven and Barbara Smith operated a New York dairy and produced and sold unpasteurized milk from 1995 to 2007. During that time they were regulated and inspected by the New York Department of Agriculture and Markets (the Department), and held the permits required by the Department.
In March 2007 the Smiths surrendered their permits and formed Meadowsweet Dairy, LLC. Meadowsweet began operating the dairy and producing unpasteurized milk, cheese and yogurt. But instead of selling milk to the general public, Meadowsweet dealt only with individuals who became members of the LLC. Meadowsweet complied with none of the Department’s permit, inspection and other regulatory requirements.
Meadowsweet’s members were required to make an initial capital contribution of $50, and to make capital contributions at the start of each quarter based on the member’s estimated consumption of milk and dairy products during the quarter. Members were then entitled to receive what were called “dividends,” i.e., distributions from the LLC, in proportion to their capital contributions. The list price of milk received by the member was then credited against the member’s capital account. Milk and other dairy products produced by Meadowsweet were only available to Meadowsweet’s members.
In October 2007 the Department seized 260 pounds of unpasteurized milk from Meadowsweet for noncompliance with its regulations. Meadowsweet then commenced suit, seeking a declaration that the Department lacked jurisdiction.
Meadowsweet’s principal argument was that it was not selling products – that no sale occurred when its members received milk products as distributions. The court, however, looked at Meadowsweet’s system of prepaid capital accounts and offsetting credits equal to the list price of the member’s milk dividend and concluded that “[r]ather than truly constituting dividends in return for their investment in the LLC, this arrangement appears to be a system of prepayment for the sale of dairy products.” Meadowsweet, 2010 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 1841, at **10.
The court did not analyze why the arrangement “appears to be a system of prepayment,” but it’s not hard to see what must have been the court’s reasoning. First, the adoption of the new business model (capital contributions and milk distributions that offset against the member’s capital) coincided with surrendering the Department’s permits. But more tellingly, the so-called capital contributions were not used as capital in any normal sense of the word.
The “capital” of a business usually means its assets, such as cash, goods, and machinery, that are used to generate income. Capital is usually held for the long term. An LLC’s operating agreement can specify how distributions are made, see New York Limited Liability Company Law Section 504, and LLCs almost always severely limit the extent to which distributions can be made to members. In contrast, Meadowsweet’s members could unilaterally decide how much milk to consume and thereby control their receipt of “dividends.” Each member’s capital fluctuated during the quarter based on its milk consumption.
The court did not recognize any business purpose for Meadowsweet’s structure other than avoiding regulation, and found that Meadowsweet was in effect selling milk to its members. Meadowsweet labeled its members’ payments as capital and labeled the milk delivered to its members as dividends, but the court ignored the terminology and looked to the substance rather than the form of the transaction. Presumably the court was also influenced by the public health character of the Department’s regulations.
The court also found other reasons why Meadowsweet was subject to the jurisdiction of the Department. The regulations required that producers of milk products such as the cheese and yogurt produced by Meadowsweet must obtain a milk plant permit. The court also held that even if the milk was not sold, a permit is nonetheless required for unpasteurized milk given or otherwise made available to consumers.
In considering the results of this unsuccessful attempt to avoid the Department’s regulations, one wonders whether legal counsel were involved and what role they played. Did a lawyer for the Smiths originate the idea of using an LLC and recharacterizing milk sales as capital contributions and dividends? Or did the Smiths originate the idea and use a lawyer to form Meadowsweet and document the arrangements with milk consumers? Or was the entire plan carried out without the benefit of legal advice? If lawyers were involved they appear to have taken what a more conservative lawyer would call an overly aggressive approach, to put it charitably. Sometimes the best advice a lawyer can give is to say “Let’s stop and think this one over,” and that surely would have been good advice here.
Straightening Out Kinks in Washington's LLC Law
Last month Governor Gregoire signed into law a bill amending Washington’s Limited Liability Company Act (Act). The amendments address the confusion introduced by last year’s Supreme Court ruling in Chadwick Farms Owners Ass’n v. FHC, LLC, 166 Wn.2d 178, 207 P.3d 1251 (2009), and eliminate a nonsensical provision that was injected into the Act in 2009. The amendments will take effect June 10, 2010.
Chadwick Farms dealt with dissolution and winding-up issues. The court held that once a Washington LLC’s certificate of formation has been cancelled, it cannot sue or be sued and any pending lawsuits by or against the LLC abate. The court also held that those who improperly wind up the LLC can be personally liable to the LLC’s creditors. I analyzed the court’s reasoning and some of the questions raised, here.
The bill’s amendments substantially change the Act’s dissolution procedures. Under the current Act, a Washington LLC’s dissolution is a private action that can be taken by unanimous member consent, or that occurs as specified in the certificate of formation or LLC agreement. Wash. Rev. Code § 25.15.270. No public filing is required upon dissolution, but upon completion of winding up, the LLC’s certificate of formation must be cancelled by filing a certificate of cancellation. Wash. Rev. Code § 25.15.080.
The amendments eliminate the entire concept of cancelling the certificate of formation. Effective June 10, 2010 there will be no requirement or ability to file a certificate of cancellation. Instead, a dissolved LLC may elect to file a certificate of dissolution with the Washington Secretary of State. Filing a certificate of dissolution is not mandatory, but if it is filed it commences a three-year survival period, after which claims may not be brought by or against the LLC or its managers or members.
If no certificate of dissolution is filed, claims by or against the LLC or its managers or members are not time-limited, except by any applicable statutes of limitations. Presumably most dissolving LLCs will file the certificate of dissolution in order to start running the three-year period.
The amendments also address the winding-up procedures for a dissolved LLC. A new procedure was added: an LLC that has filed a certificate of dissolution may give notice of the dissolution to known claimants and require that claims be asserted within 120 days of the notice. Claims not asserted within the time limit are cut off. If a claimant responds and the LLC then rejects the claim, the claim will be barred unless the claimant commences a legal action to enforce the claim within 90 days of the LLC’s rejection.
The new bill also addresses a 2009 amendment to the Act, currently codified in Wash. Rev. Code § 25.15.293, which I discussed here. The 2009 change made no sense, and the new bill simply deletes it.
The members of the Washington Bar Committee on the Law of Partnerships and LLCs, ably chaired by Brian Todd, as well as the Washington legislators who worked on this bill, are to be commended for their efforts. The new approach to LLC dissolution is a decided improvement over that of the prior Act.
