Unincorporated Business Entities Law

Mohsen Manesh (Oreg.) has a working paper with the alliterative title Damning Dictum: The Default Duty Debate in Delaware” (February 21, 2013)(SSRN). The paper reacts to the Delaware Supreme Court’s opinion in Gatz Properties, LLC. v. Auriga Capital Corp., C.A. 4390 (Del. Nov. 7, 2012)(per curiam), aff’g on other grounds, Auriga Capital Corp. v. Gatz Properties, LLC, 40 A.3d 839 (Del. Ch. 2012) (slip opinion). As discussed in Gatz Properties, LLC. v. Auriga Capital Corp. (Del. 2012): Strine Affirmed on other Grounds and Chastised, in his opinion below, Chancellor Strine had outlined the basis for applying default fiduciary duties to persons managing Delaware LLCs, and the Delaware Supreme Court rebuked him for doing so.

Prof. Manesh criticizes the Delaware Supreme Court’s opinion in Gatz Properties, LLC on several grounds. Two of the most important are:

• The Court needlessly unsettled expectations that default fiduciary duties apply, except where modified or eliminated by agreement.
• Not only have both the Delaware Chancery and Supreme courts long used dicta to guide the development of the law, that practice is central to the pre-eminence of those courts, and of Delaware generally, in the law of business organizations.

Gary Rosin