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Minority owners of a business face unique challenges. With limited or no control over the management and governance of a business, minority owners can be unfairly left in the cold or squeezed out. However, deliberate preparation and negotiation at the initial stages of the business can set up minority owners with the necessary tools and formation agreement to eliminate or reduce many of these difficulties and even avoid future conflict.

Unlike businesses with a single controlling owner or several owners, a 50/50 business by its very nature is ripe for disagreement between its owners. Owners of a 50/50 business will need to proactively consider how to handle disagreements when setting up their business venture and drafting their operating agreement, shareholders agreement, or partnership agreement. In a 50/50 arrangement, there are ways owners can negotiate and draft the company’s governing documents to anticipate four common areas of disagreement.

Work is evolving in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, organizations need to recalibrate their compensation approach to ensure program goals and objectives align with this new reality. Learn what key considerations organizations should take as they review and update their compensation philosophy, programs, and practices. A checklist is also provided to help prepare for a compliant and stress-free enrollment season.

Over the last five years, cyberattacks have moved away from targeting millions of dollars in a single attack to targeting transactions of $100,000 or less at smaller organizations. With limited security and lack of awareness, family offices are attractive targets for cybercriminals. By taking a business-minded approach and understanding the strategy and methodology driving prevalent cyberthreats, family offices as a risk manager can more clearly identify vulnerabilities in their cybersecurity protocols and risk profiles.

Media is a great tool for storytelling. Photo albums can reveal ancestral details, documents can highlight past events, and film can rejuvenate old memories. All these items contribute to your family’s legacy. Although we see the value in this irreplaceable media, few of us are doing enough to protect it. That is why we are exposing the top threats to your physical media to show what you can do to protect it for your family legacy.

The key to success of any risk management plan is the development of an “all risk” approach that takes the entire family enterprise into account. Through a survey of more than 200 family office executives at single and multi-family offices, an uncovering of some worrying approaches has surfaced around the risks that family offices face, particularly cyber risk, family-related risk, investment risk, and employment-related/insider risks.

Business divorces are often messy. The reasons vary—personality-driven disputes, disagreements over business direction, or timing and distribution of earnings. When majority owners seek advice of the company’s attorney to formulate a plan to force out a minority owner, the company expects this advice to be covered by the attorney-client privilege. But in Illinois, minority members of LLCs may be able to obtain copies of communications between the LLC’s managers and its attorneys.

Those with ownership stakes in privately held businesses, partnerships, or family offices need to closely collaborate with and trust others. But when there is a disagreement or dispute, it can create a situation where someone is looking for ways to force out owners of non-controlling shares and seek the advice of the company’s attorney to formulate a plan. For an Illinois LLC and their majority members, there are steps that can protect otherwise privileged communications from disclosure to minority members in advance of and during litigation.

Solving disputes among business partners and owners in a privately held business can quickly become complicated matters that end up calling for access to an LLC or corporation’s privileged communications. Only in rare circumstances can there be access to those privileged communications. Most courts apply a fact-intensive test that is difficult to satisfy. A closer look at the rule explains how it applies to Illinois corporations and business entities organized in other jurisdictions.

Business closures have been immensely difficult for companies of all sizes during the COVID-19 pandemic. But reopening is proving difficult, too, especially given the ever-changing nature of the pandemic. As cases have surged in new parts of the country, businesses have been forced to reassess their operational plans in both the near- and long-term. Owners and executives are paying close attention both to customer and employee safety. And businesses must be mindful of potential legal ramifications of their decisions.