- 96 - decedent during his lifetime because it explicitly gave the decedent unilateral power to alter or amend its terms, and the natural objects of the decedent’s bounty were the other shareholders. In the cases at hand, we agree with petitioners that Dave True could not unilaterally terminate the agreements because, by their terms, the buy-sell agreements would not terminate until the death of the last surviving shareholder. However, contrary to petitioners’ assertions, we note that each corporation was listed as a party to its own amended and restated buy-sell agreement dated August 11, 1984. Notwithstanding this inconsistency, we believe that Dave True’s controlling ownership did not give him unilateral authority to alter or amend the corporate buy-sell agreements so that they would be considered non-binding. First, the agreement in Bommer explicitly conferred on the decedent the unilateral power to amend. See id. This is not true in the cases at hand. Second, it appears that the primary parties to the instant agreements were the shareholders and that the corporation was included only to ensure that the stock certificates were marked with transfer restrictions. Therefore, contrary to respondent’s assertions, we conclude that Dave True’s majority ownership of the True corporations did not confer on him the unilateral authority to alter or amend the buy-sell agreements, which wouldPage: Previous 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 Next
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