The Canal Street Blog

Business-focused legal discussion

The Business Purchase Letter of Intent

Today's post discusses an important preliminary step when you are purchasing a business’s assets or stock: drafting a business purchase letter of intent.

  Gideon Dionne

Today’s post discusses an important early step when you are purchasing a business: drafting and negotiating a business purchase letter of intent. The process of drafting and negotiating a business purchase letter of intent generally follows the initial negotiation of the major business purchase terms. Those material terms—price, payment method, closing timing, and basic conditions to the sale—are generally negotiated directly between the parties on smaller business purchase and sale transactions. On larger transactions, the parties and their brokers and investment bankers negotiate those terms.

After you agree on what each party is going to do as part of the business purchase, one party (often the buyer) will distill those main business terms into a written document that is the business purchase letter of intent....

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Many Startups Are (Unintentionally) Breaking These Wage Laws

Washington State requires all businesses to meet minimum wage requirements. We discuss what they are, possible exemptions, and how to avoid complications.

  Gavin Johnson

Since most startups don’t have a large reserve of cash during their early days, it is common for startups to compensate founders and early employees solely with equity. While this allows startups to conserve what little cash they have, this practice could ultimately be very costly for the company if it runs afoul of wage laws. In today’s post, we discuss various ways that startups may expose themselves (and in some cases their founders, directors, and officers) to liability for violating wage laws, and some steps companies can take to limit that liability.

While the attorneys in our firm do not practice employment law specifically, we come across these issues frequently when working with startups and think it is something founders...

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