Mergers and Acquisitions

Advanced Risk Allocation in Contracts: Tailoring Clauses for Greater Protection

April 11, 2025 | Michael R. Smith

In our last article, we explored key risk allocation clauses business attorneys use in contracts, including indemnification, liability caps, waiver of consequential damages, and termination provisions. These foundational concepts highlight the importance of clear drafting and strategic negotiation in managing contractual liabilities. This article delves deeper into advanced considerations, offering practical guidance for tailoring clauses to industry-specific needs, coordinating provisions with insurance coverage, and understanding the interplay between liability caps and indemnification. As in the previous article, we focus on Indiana law. Although the details mary vary from state to state, the same concepts apply to most U.S. jurisdictions.

Tailoring Clauses for Industry-Specific Needs

Risk allocation requirements vary significantly across industries, necessitating tailored approaches to contractual provisions. For example:

Understanding and Negotiating Risk Allocation in Contracts

April 11, 2025 | Michael R. Smith

Effective risk allocation is essential in contract law, allowing parties to address potential liabilities and manage their exposure predictably. Business lawyers must draft risk allocation clauses carefully to ensure clarity, foster collaboration, and protect financial interests. This article explores the key types of risk allocation clauses found in business agreements and offers insights into how to negotiate them to achieve fair outcomes. As usual, our analysis assumes that Indiana law applies to the contract, but the same types of clauses are used in every jurisdiction in the United States.

Parties to contracts sometimes leave the negotiation of risk allocation to the last minute, when it can no longer be avoided. After all, few people entering into a business deal expect it to go wrong, and it can be uncomfortable to discuss who will suffer the consequences if it does. Even worse, some business owners never seriously consider risk allocation at all, expecting their lawyers to draft the language by themselves, under the misconception that indemnification clauses and waivers of consequential damages are just boilerplate that can be copied from one contract and pasted into another. Careful business owners do neither of those things, and their attorneys should try not to let them. Business owners and their lawyers alike should consider and tailor risk allocation languages to the particular situation.

Key Types of Risk Allocation Clauses

Buying a Small Business in Indiana: Stock Purchase or Asset Purchase?

April 1, 2025 | Michael R. Smith

Buying a small Business-for-sale-For-sale-sign-1090969206_727x484-300x200 business in Indiana is an exciting venture that can set you on the path to success. One critical decision stands between you and your dream: Should you buy the company itself or just its assets? Let’s explore these two approaches to help you navigate this important choice. For simplicity, let’s assume the business is organized as an Indiana limited liability company (LLC).

Stock Purchase vs. Asset Purchase: The Basics

If you decide to buy the company itself, you’ll be purchasing the interest in the LLC—often referred to as a “stock sale.” While LLCs don’t technically have stock, the term persists as a carryover from the days when corporations, which do have stock, dominated the business landscape. Another name that is becoming more common is “equity sale,” which covers stock in a corporation, interest in an LLC, and any other form of equity.

Indiana Business Entity Harmonization: Part IV

January 3, 2018 | Michael R. Smith

[March 3, 2018. The General Assembly amended some of the provisions created the Business Entity Harmonization Bill, as discussed in a Postscript to this series.]

This is the last in four-part series. The first three parts are here: here, here, and here.

This Part IV describes some flaws of Senate Enrolled Act 443 that we ran across while writing the first three parts. We hope the General Assembly will address them, either in the 2018 session or another.

Indiana Business Entity Harmonization: Part III

January 2, 2018 | Michael R. Smith

[March 3, 2018. The General Assembly amended some of the provisions created the Business Entity Harmonization Bill, as discussed in a Postscript to this series.]

This is the third of a four-part series discussing the Business Entity Harmonization Bill passed by the Indiana General Assembly in 2017. The first two parts are here and here.

Senate Enrolled Act 443 creates, effective as of January 1, 2018, a new Article 0.6, the Uniform Business Organization Transactions Code, in Title 23 of the Indiana Code. In previous versions of the statute, provisions dealing with mergers, conversions, and domestications of business corporations, limited liability companies (LLCs), limited partnerships (LPs), limited liability partnerships (LLPs), and nonprofit corporations were scattered across several articles of Title 23. The Uniform Business Organization Transactions Code gathers most of them into one article that, in general, applies at least as broadly as each corresponding provision of the former statute, and in some cases more broadly. In addition, the new article provides for the acquisition of ownership interest (i.e., stock in a corporation or interest in a partnership or LLC) by another entity.