Settlement Counsel - Business Divorce

The firm is often retained by family law counsel to assist in marital cases. In these family law matters, Diamond McCarthy’s role is to assist in optimizing the financial outcome for the parties in the divorce settlement. Due to the confidential nature of marital cases, which often involve children, the following matter descriptions do not identify the firm’s clients and refer instead to the nature of the business assets that were involved in the marital estate.

(Real Estate) The couple in this divorce owned several large tracts of raw land, and disagreed about the potential for substantial increases in the real estate’s value based on anticipated future zoning changes. Diamond McCarthy was able to resolve these business conflicts by negotiating the terms of a structured divorce settlement providing for payments to be tied to the future sale of the property under differing parameters for the sale.

(Oil & Gas) The principal asset in this divorce was a minority interest in a private company that produced raw materials for the oil and gas industry. The illiquid nature of this minority interest required the couple’s divorce settlement to provide for a long-term structured payout. Diamond McCarthy therefore negotiated a payment structure that included both a floor and a ceiling in terms of the ultimate amount to be paid under the terms of the divorce settlement.

(Private Company Investments) In this divorce, the couple had made substantial, but minority, investments in a number of private companies. To conclude the settlement, Diamond McCarthy negotiated a trust agreement that transferred all of the private company investments into a newly formed trust with the husband serving as Trustee and the wife as one of two trust beneficiaries. The trust agreement protected the former wife’s ownership interest in the investments held in the trust while allowing both of the parties to benefit from the anticipated appreciation in the value of the assets held in trust.

(Real Estate) The divorcing couple owned interests in real estate development projects, and they entered into a marital agreement to divide their interests in the event of a divorce. Under the terms of the marital agreement, the husband continued to retain full control over most of the assets that were formerly in the marital estate, which created substantial conflicts. Diamond McCarthy helped negotiate the terms of a new, revised settlement agreement that addressed the business concerns of each party in the divorce, and which provided for a long-term, structured buyout of the wife’s interest in the community estate.

(VA Hospitals) This marital estate included multiple investments in privately held companies that had entered into long-term lease contracts with government operated VA hospitals. The successful negotiation of the divorce settlement in this matter resulted in a division of assets that required analysis of this asset class, including various tax, real estate and financial issues.

(Long-Term Alimony) In this divorce, the husband agreed to provide the wife with alimony payments for the rest of her life, but this long-term payment stream needed to be protected by some form of collateral. Diamond McCarthy provided family law counsel with a number of alternative methods for collateralizing the alimony obligation to permit the couple to conclude their divorce settlement on mutually acceptable terms.

(Government Contracting) In this divorce, the wife owned the majority stake in a consulting service business that did extensive contracting with the federal government. Diamond McCarthy negotiated a transfer of the wife’s business majority ownership interest to the husband in order to conclude the divorce settlement in a manner that optimized the value to both parties.