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Shareholders' Agreement
A shareholders' agreement (sometimes referred to in the U.S. as a stockholders' agreement) (SHA) is an enforceable agreement amongst the shareholders or members of a company. In practical effect, it is analogous to a partnership agreement. There are advantages of the shareholder's agreement: they provide a contractual remedy if their terms are broken, and they can help the corporate entity to maintain the absence of publicity and maintain confidentiality. Nonetheless, there are also some disadvantages that should be considered, such as the limited effect to the third parties (especially assignees and share purchasers) and that alteration of the terms of an agreement can be time consuming. Purpose In strict legal theory, the relationships amongst the shareholders and those between the shareholders and the company are regulated by the constitutional documents of the company. However, where there are a relatively small number of shareholders, like in a startup company, it is quite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States
The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 contiguous states border Canada to the north and Mexico to the south, with the semi-exclave of Alaska in the northwest and the archipelago of Hawaii in the Pacific Ocean. The United States asserts sovereignty over five Territories of the United States, major island territories and United States Minor Outlying Islands, various uninhabited islands in Oceania and the Caribbean. It is a megadiverse country, with the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, third-largest land area and List of countries and dependencies by population, third-largest population, exceeding 340 million. Its three Metropolitan statistical areas by population, largest metropolitan areas are New York metropolitan area, New York, Greater Los Angeles, Los Angel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Startup Company
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an Entrepreneurship, entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship includes all new businesses including self-employment and businesses that do not intend to Initial public offering, go public, startups are new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo-founder. During the beginning, startups face high uncertainty and have high rates of failure, but a minority of them do go on to become successful and influential, such as unicorn (finance), unicorns.Erin Griffith (2014)Why startups fail, according to their founders, Fortune.com, 25 September 2014; accessed 27 October 2017 Actions Startups typically begin by a founder (solo-founder) or co-founders who have a way to solve a problem. The founder of a startup will do the market validation by problem interview, solution interview, and building a minimum viable product (MVP), i.e. a prototype, to develop and validate thei ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Piggy-back (law)
Piggy-back applies to contractual agreements in law, more specifically shareholder selling rights. To apply, a piggy-back clause must be included in a corporation's shareholder agreement, which is part of the incorporation materials. Because the shareholder's agreement is a contract A contract is an agreement that specifies certain legally enforceable rights and obligations pertaining to two or more parties. A contract typically involves consent to transfer of goods, services, money, or promise to transfer any of thos ..., the rules are rather soft, and a piggyback clause can be tailored to fit the specific needs of the company. Generally, a piggyback clause applies only to a majority shareholder or someone with a large portion of the shares. The clause will come into effect when that person decides to sell all or a significant part (the percentage can be decided upon in the convention) of their shares to a third party (who may or may not be a shareholder). Should th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dispute Resolution
Dispute resolution or dispute settlement is the process of resolving disputes between parties. The term ''dispute resolution'' is '' conflict resolution'' through legal means. Prominent venues for dispute settlement in international law include the International Court of Justice (formerly the Permanent Court of International Justice); the United Nations Human Rights Committee (which operates under the ICCPR) and European Court of Human Rights; the Panels and Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization; and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. Half of all international agreements include a dispute settlement mechanism. States are also known to form their own arbitration tribunals to settle disputes. Prominent private international courts, which adjudicate disputes between commercial private entities, include the International Court of Arbitration (of the International Chamber of Commerce) and the London Court of International Arbitration. Methods Met ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Deadlock Provision
A deadlock provision, or deadlock resolution clause, is a contractual clause or series of clauses in a shareholders' agreement or other form of joint venture agreement which determines how disagreements on key issues are to be resolved in relation to the management of the enterprise. The drafting of the deadlock provisions will often depend to a great extent upon what the key issues that the parties want to ensure consensus upon are. The main focus of most deadlock provisions are the termination provisions. The principle underlying them is that a successful business enterprise should not be destroyed solely because the two partners are unable to agree on a core issue; the value of the business as a going concern should be preserved, and a fair way should be found to allow one party to bow out with fair recompense for giving up their share in the venture. Characteristics Deadlock provisions vary enormously between different countries and with respect to different types of transactio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Board Of Directors
A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulations (including the jurisdiction's corporate law) and the organization's own constitution and by-laws. These authorities may specify the number of members of the board, how they are to be chosen, and how often they are to meet. In an organization with voting members, the board is accountable to, and may be subordinate to, the organization's full membership, which usually elect the members of the board. In a stock corporation, non-executive directors are elected by the shareholders, and the board has ultimate responsibility for the management of the corporation. In nations with codetermination (such as Germany and Sweden), the workers of a corporation elect a set fraction of the board's members. The board of directors appoints the ch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Foss V Harbottle
''Foss v Harbottle'' (1843) 2 Hare 46167 ER 189is a leading English precedent in corporate law. In any action in which a wrong is alleged to have been done to a company, the proper claimant is the company itself. This is known as "the proper plaintiff rule", and the several important exceptions that have been developed are often described as "exceptions to the rule in ''Foss v Harbottle''". Amongst these is the " derivative action", which allows a minority shareholder to bring a claim on behalf of the company. This applies in situations of "wrongdoer control" and is, in reality, the only true exception to the rule. The rule in ''Foss v Harbottle'' is best seen as the starting point for minority shareholder remedies. The rule has now largely been partly codified and displaced in the United Kingdom by the Companies Act 2006 sections 260–263, setting out a statutory derivative claim. Facts Richard Foss and Edward Starkie Turton were two minority shareholders in the "Victoria Par ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drag-along Right
Drag-along right (DAR) is a concept in corporate law, often encountered in the context of venture capital and private equity. Under the concept, if the majority shareholder(s) of an entity sells their stake, the prospective owner(s) have the right to force the remaining minority shareholders to join the deal. However, the owner must usually offer the same terms and conditions to the minority shareholders as to the majority shareholder(s). Drag-along rights are fairly standard terms in a stock purchase agreement. This right protects majority shareholders (allowing them to sell to an owner desiring total control of the entity, without being encumbered by holdout investors), but also protects minority shareholders (who can sell their investment on the same terms and conditions as the majority shareholder). This differs from a tag-along right, which also allows minority shareholders to sell on the same terms and conditions (and requires the new owner to offer them), but does not re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tag-along Right
Tag along rights (TARs) comprise a group of clauses in a contract which together have the effect of allowing the minority shareholder(s) in a corporation to also take part in a sale of shares by the majority shareholder to a third party under the same terms and conditions. Consider an example: A and B are both shareholders in a company, with A being the majority shareholder and B the minority shareholder. C, a third party, offers to buy A's shares at an attractive price, and A accepts. In this situation, tag-along rights would allow B to also participate in the sale under the same terms and conditions as A. As with other contractual provisions, tag-along rights originated from the doctrine of freedom of contract and is governed by contract law (in common law countries) or the law of obligations (in civil law countries). As tag-along rights are contractual terms between private parties, they are often found in venture capital and private equity firms but not public companies. S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Right Of First Refusal
Right of first refusal (ROFR or RFR) is a contractual right that gives its holder the option to enter a business transaction with the owner of something, according to specified terms, before the owner is entitled to enter into that transaction with a third party. A first refusal right must have at least three parties: the owner, the third party or buyer, and the option holder. In general, the owner must make the same offer to the option holder ''before'' making the offer to the buyer. The right of first refusal is similar in concept to a call option. A ROFR can cover almost any sort of asset, including real estate, personal property, a patent license, a screenplay, or an interest in a business. It might also cover business transactions that are not strictly assets, such as the right to enter a joint venture or distribution arrangement. In entertainment, a right of first refusal on a concept or a screenplay would give the holder the right to make that movie first while in rea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pre-emption Right
A pre-emption right, right of pre-emption, or first option to buy is a contractual right to acquire certain property newly coming into existence before it can be offered to any other person or entity. It comes from the Latin verb ''emo, emere, emi, emptum'', to buy or purchase, plus the inseparable preposition ''pre'', before. A right to acquire existing property in preference to any other person is usually referred to as a ''right of first refusal''. Company shares In practice, the most common form of pre-emption right is the right of existing shareholders to acquire new shares issued by a company in a rights issue, usually a public offering. In this context, the pre-emptive right is also called subscription right or subscription privilege. It is the right but not the obligation of existing shareholders to buy the new shares before they are offered to the public. In that way, existing shareholders can maintain their proportional ownership of the company and thus prevent stock dil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
