LLCs May Be Right Unless They’re Wrong

As I’ve posted before, I usually advise non-US companies to form a corporation when expanding to the United States. Every now and then, I get some pushback because the non-US company has heard about ‘limited liability companies’ (LLCs) in the US and wants to take advantage of the pass-through tax advantages of the LLC form. Before diving too deeply on this, let me get some definitional items out of the way. Corporate law in the US is predominately a creation of, and within the control of, the states. That’s why you hear about a ‘Delaware corporation’ or a ‘New York corporation’ and not a ‘United States corporation.’ That’s our Federal system at work (when it works). The corporation form in the US is similar to the limited company forms in Ireland and Northern Ireland, in that the shareholders/investors in each are only liable for the entity’s debts to the extent of their investment. Continue reading

Of War Stories and Security Interests

This is a good ‘war story’ about getting paid.  The client was (and is) based in the European Union, and they sold product to the US market.  Their products were (and are) high-value, about $100,000+ per item. Not stuff I’d be able to buy, but I digress. The company insisted–strongly–on using their ‘home country’ terms and conditions of sale in the US, without thoroughly reviewing whether there was anything in the home country law that could adversely affect them in the US. We were not involved at that point. Continue reading

Learning, Knowing, and Living Incoterms (Or, How Fast Times at Ridgemont High Can Help Your Export Strategy)

In a prior post, I revealed that I am a child of the 1980s.  This post will start with a quote from the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High: “Learn it. Know it. Live it.”

While the context of that quote was the Brad Hamilton character (Judge Reinhold) trying to get the Jeff Spicoli character (Sean Penn) to wear a shirt and shoes in a fast-food establishment, this post will focus on the terms of trade and that Irish/Northern Irish companies need to learn, know, and live: Incoterms. This is probably the first time, anywhere, that Incoterms and Fast Times at Ridgemont High have been linked, but I digress.

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