Pre-formation fiduciary duties in LLCs: Roni v. Arfa

Cite this Article
Larry Ribstein, Pre-formation fiduciary duties in LLCs: Roni v. Arfa, Truth on the Market (September 09, 2011), https://truthonthemarket.com/2011/09/09/pre-formation-fiduciary-duties-in-llcs-roni-v-arfa/

Last year I wrote here about Roni LLC v Arfa, which I cited as an example of the “troubling lawlessness of NY LLC law.”

As discussed in my blog post, the court in that case, after holding that the parties’ arms-length pre-formation business relationship did not support a fiduciary relationship, nevertheless denied defendants’ motion to dismiss based on “plaintiffs’ allegations that the promoter defendants planned the business venture, organized the LLCs, and solicited plaintiffs to invest in them.” The court applied old corporate cases holding 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.”

I criticized the court’s holding as misapplying NY LLC law, concluding:

[T]he court’s reasoning using hoary old corporate promoter cases to create a pre-formation fiduciary duty to disclose in LLC cases promises to make a mess out of NY LLC law. It also creates significant problems for business people who now have a fiduciary duty, with uncertain disclosure duties, imposed on what the court itself recognized is basically an arms’ length market relationship. It’s not even clear how parties can contract out of this duty, since the whole problem is that they do not yet have a contract.

It seems the only way NY business people involved in business formation can avoid this problem is simply to avoid New York.

My blog post ended up being cited in the appellants’ brief on appeal, which prompted a response in the respondents’ brief (see n. 25).

I was then moved to write an amicus brief in connection with the appeal, which the NY Court of Appeals has now accepted for filing. To complete the picture, here’s the appellants’ reply.

I understand the case will be heard in November and decided a couple of months thereafter.  It will be interesting to see what the Court of Appeals makes of all this.