Brennan Case Study

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1. What body of law governs franchise relationships?
Franchises are governed by contract law, the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) and Federal regulations (Clarkson, 2015, p. 321). A franchise is a contractual relationship between a franchisor (Principal) and a franchisee (Agent), in which the sale of goods and services are concerned (Vinson, 2015). Therefore, contract laws and UCC guidelines apply to franchise agreements. The FTC is responsible for enforcing Franchise Rules that regulate and protect the rights of potential franchisees (Vinson, 2015). The congress has also enacted specific laws that govern automobile and service station franchise industries. For instance, an automobile franchisor is who is making unreasonable demands and/or practicing …show more content…

is a New Orlean’s restaurant that is owned and operated by two brothers and shareholders Jimmy and Theodore. The Brennan brothers hired a lawyer to represent them in a dispute with another family member . The legal bills were sent to Brennan’s, Inc. and payments were made directly from the company’s checkbooks. In 2005, the Brennan’s filed a lawsuit against their law firm on the grounds of legal malpractice. The law firm then demanded the Brennan’s to pay their legal debts, but the court determined that the brothers cannot be held personally liable (Findlaw, 2013). The Law firm appealed the case and requested the court to pierce the corporate veil because Brennan’s, Inc. did not uphold proper corporate formalities and failed to pay their legal fees. Since the Brennan’s Inc. was a close corporation, the court could not find fault or discrepancies regarding fraud or failure to maintain corporate formalities (Findlaw. 2013). The law firm was aware of the fact that the Brennan’s maintained their own accounting records and that legal bills were to be sent to Brennan’s Inc. There was no evidence to prove that the Brennan brothers made a promise to be personally liable for their legal obligations (Findlaw, 2013). The law firm also agreed that, as a close corporation, the Brennan’s were not required to follow the corporate formalities of a larger corporation. Therefore, piercing the corporate veil could not be established since there was no proof of fraud or lack of …show more content…

This transformation process begins with an Initial Public Offering (IPO), which in most cases is a very difficult and intensive process (Phung, 2006b). An IPO is a formal, regulatory procedure that involves extensive documentation and is followed by a process of changes a company must go through in order to attain public status. The three phases include a pre-IPO transformation phase, an IPO transaction phase and a post-IPO transaction phase (Phung, 2006b). Running a publically-traded company is a completely different playing field which requires a company to restructure their management practices, organizational procedures and corporate governance (Clarkson, 770). Above all, shareholders must aim to maximize the company’s value by enhancing its growth strategy and projected profits in order to persuade investors to trade purchase shares. Completion of the pre-transformational phase will normally take about two years (Phung,

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