Shareholder Disputes

Your business is your livelihood. A shareholder agreement is as fundamental to any business as the business plan itself. It’s important for everyone holding stock in a business to know his or her rights and obligations. Shareholders in a business place a great deal of trust in one another, and that trust should be respected.

The best way to resolve disputes is to prevent them altogether with a carefully crafted shareholders agreement. Our New York business litigation lawyer can help create shareholder agreements that help your business. Shareholders have to uphold the terms of the shareholder agreements. Furthermore, shareholders who play an active role in the business have fiduciary responsibilities to the business. Our goals as your attorneys go beyond mere dispute resolution. We want to help create a spirit of cooperation and teamwork within your company.

If an actual shareholder dispute does come along, our attorneys will not only resolve the dispute, but also use the dispute as an opportunity to strengthen your business for the future. Common sources of shareholder disputes include: dissenting shareholders, minority shareholder oppression, and transactions in company stock.

Disputes are very common among NY shareholders

In business, change is inevitable. Our shareholder litigation attorneys can help with buying and selling of company stock. Over time, some shareholders will want out and new people will want to buy in. And occasionally, there may be a dispute between shareholders regarding how the business is being run. All of these things will happen at some point. It is best to be prepared rather than caught off guard. We can help you prepare for these situations.

We also represent minority and majority shareholders in oppression disputes. There are some situations where people will take advantage of their position either as the majority, or the minority swing-vote, and use that to oppress the other shareholders. Shareholders should always work together, not against each other.

Shareholders have fiduciary responsibilities toward one another and toward the business. What is fiduciary responsibility? In the famous words the great Justice Cardozo: “A trustee is held to something stricter than the morals of the market place. Not honesty alone, but the punctilio of an honor the most sensitive, is then the standard of behavior… the level of conduct for fiduciaries [has] been kept at a level higher than that trodden by the crowd.” Meinhard v. Salmon, 164 N.E. 545 (N.Y. 1928).

One shareholder can enforce this fiduciary responsibility against other shareholders. If you suspect somebody is stealing business opportunities generated by your business, or otherwise misappropriate assists belonging to the company, contact one of our shareholder litigation lawyers. We can help resolve the matter quickly.