In addition to your financial and personnel records, a potential purchaser of a business will also want to closely examine the state of the contractual relationships with external third parties including key suppliers, licensees, landlords and of course customers. The first fundamental question is ‘are the contracts up to date’….

In the first part of our series on preparing a business for sale I looked at the steps business owners can take to make the transaction faster, smoother and more lucrative. Often, one of the first things a potential buyer will want to examine are the employment contracts for the…

As more and more people face an instable job market, the opportunity to determine ones future is becoming increasingly popular. Ingenuity and drive will make those start-ups successful. Starting out with the right business structure and understanding of some other fundamentals of business law will make that success a little…

In a recent post we emphasized the importance and potentially significant benefits of properly preparing when a commercial dispute heads to mediation. Once the mediation starts there are several ways you can actively contribute to the session that will greatly increase the chance of reaching a settlement. Keys to a…

In our first two posts on mediating commercial disputes we addressed the steps that should be taken before and during the mediation process.  In our final post on the topic we address the best approach to presenting offersand negotiating a settlement. Give thought to how you structure your offer to…

Since the introduction of the new federal not-for-profit legislation, we have assisted several not-for-profits who have struggled to track down the key documents needed for continuance under the new not-for-profit legislation.  Key documents such as the Letters Patent or Supplementary Letters Patent and a current copy of the by-laws must be…

Businesses who find themselves embroiled in a commercial dispute have the opportunity to resolve it through mediation.  Unfortunately, mediation can often fail to produce a settlement not because of a lack of will, but because of a lack of planning and understanding of the process.  The goal of mediation should…

For many business owners the decision to sell their business is not an easy one. But once the decision to sell has been made, many owners become frustrated with the length of time needed and the detail required to complete the transaction. Recently released analysis of 9,000 transactions by an…