Biography

Karen Yuen is a general business and transactional attorney, the bulk of whose work involves advising privately and publicly owned businesses in the wine industry. These matters range from complex real estate and corporate transactions, including acquisition and disposition of wineries, vineyards, inventory, and brands, to general real property, corporate and tax matters, and general operations. With respect to the latter, Karen assists her wine clients in negotiating joint ventures, financings (from both the borrower’s and the lender’s perspective), grape purchase agreements, production agreements, and a range of other agreements, including those involving trademarks and licensing.

Her transactional practice is a natural extension of her mergers and acquisitions work. She negotiates the transaction and develops sophisticated, innovative strategies to help deliver her clients’ unique objectives and business needs. In conjunction with a purchase, she advises clients on how to hold and manage the business and assets. With respect to wineries, clients range from those who own their facilities and vineyards to virtual wineries that require advice on their relationships with vineyard managers, grape sources, and custom crush facilities. With respect to growers, Karen advises them on their relationships with vineyard managers and wineries.

Karen also advises clients on mergers and acquisitions in non-wine industries, and provides a similarly broad range of legal services, such as restating operating agreements, general corporate counseling, and other matters. Clients in this category have included real estate developers.

Her approach combines the practicality of a trained accountant, which she is, with the strategic thinking and trusted expertise of an attorney with considerable experience in family-owned, multigenerational businesses. She has developed numerous structures to help align business goals between the parties to a transaction, and handles generational and family ownership situations in which varying degrees of interest and operational expertise are harmonized in order to develop a favorable outcome for all stakeholders.

Firm Highlights

Publication

Corporate Transparency Act: A Guide on Beneficial Ownership for Nonprofit Executives

The Corporate Transparency Act, enacted as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, represents a significant shift in regulatory requirements for entities across the United States. This act, set to...

Read More
Publication

Corporate Transparency Act: State of the Law and Beneficial Ownership Reporting Requirements

Key Points: Despite ongoing legal challenges, the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) generally remains in effect and enforceable. Clients should continue to abide by its regulations. Initial reports for entities formed in 2024 are due within...

Read More
Publication

Employment Law Update for Nonprofits With Holly Sutton

Welcome to  EO Radio Show - Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . Charities, foundations, and their founders often request help addressing employment practices and compliance questions. In this episode, host Cynthia Rowland is joined by Holly...

Read More
News

Scraping Battles: Meta Loses Legal Effort to Halt Harvesting of Personal Profiles

Alex Reese spoke to Matt Fleischer-Black of  Cybersecurity Law Report about the Meta v. Bright Data decision and its impact on U.S. scraping case law. Read the article here (paywall or trial).

Read More
News

Farella Braun + Martel Earns San Francisco Green Business Recertification

Read More
News

JPMorgan Chase Accuses TransUnion of Stealing 'Trade Secrets'

Intellectual property practice chair Eugene Mar provided expert commentary to American Banker for the article "JPMorgan Chase Accuses TransUnion of Stealing 'Trade Secrets'." In the article, he said: "By filing this as a trade...

Read More
News

Farella Announces 2024 Leadership Council on Legal Diversity Pathfinders: Taylor Rottjakob and John Ugai

Farella Braun + Martel is proud to announce that senior associates  Taylor E. Rottjakob and John M. Ugai have been named 2024 Leadership Council on Legal Diversity (LCLD) Pathfinders. Pathfinders have been identified as...

Read More
Publication

Nonprofit Quick Tip: State Filings in North Carolina and South Carolina

Welcome to  EO Radio Show - Your Nonprofit Legal Resource . Episode 75 is the tenth in a series of Quick Tip episodes focusing on the details of state registration of nonprofit corporations. With...

Read More
Publication

Insurance Market Crushes Wineries and Wine Country Homeowners

We keep hearing about how difficult it is for winery and vineyard owners to get property insurance these days, both for their homes and their wine businesses in California’s wildfire-prone areas. Those who have...

Read More
News

North Coast Industry Insiders Weigh In on Why California Cannabis Tax Revenue Slipped in 2023

Jeff Hamilton spoke to Susan Wood with the North Bay Business Journal for the article "North Coast Industry Insiders Weigh In on Why California Cannabis Tax Revenue Slipped in 2023." Read the article with Jeff's...

Read More