Are you in the midst of a dispute with or have issues with an executive or co-owner in your company?  The Watkins Firm has more than four decades of experience with executive disputes and executive severance negotiations.   Disputes within senior management can involve a CEO, CFO, CIO or any other “C” level executive as well as co-owners or members in an LLC or shareholders in a corporation.  When disputes break out between co-owners or the ownership of a corporation or LLC and its executive management team it is important to contact the Watkins Firm for a free consultation at 858-535-1511 and learn about our unique approach to disputes and litigation and our ability to resolve these disputes quickly and in a cost-effective manner.

Executive disputes require a high level of legal experience and skill.  The Watkins Firm brings more than four decades of litigation and executive dispute resolution experience here in San Diego and throughout California.  We provide extensive insight into the complex factors associated with effectively managing executive disputes and executive severance.  We represent corporate entities or individual executives in any high-level business dispute, as well as severance agreement negotiations and change-in-control arrangements.  We must protect our client’s intellectual property and trades secrets and ensure that any negotiated resolution addresses non-solicitation, confidentiality provisions and other appropriate and enforceable provisions and restrictive covenants to protect our client’s competitive advantage, key people and business operations.

Our firm has handled many cases involving a breach of fiduciary duty, the duty of loyalty, unfair business practices, misappropriation of proprietary corporate data or trade secrets, and other business management contract disputes or torts.

The executive severance agreement must be carefully negotiated and crafted to protect our client’s interests.  There are several important issues to incorporate into the final document, including but not limited to:

• Continuation or termination of employer-provided health insurance and other benefits
• Stock option agreements and retirement account contributions
• The payment of severance itself (paid over time or lump sum?)
• Negotiated resolution of equity vesting or performance based performance incentive(s)

Pro-Tip: “Everybody hears the term conflict of interest and they think it’s something like special or amazing or complicated, but it’s really not. This is the oldest con game. For example, you are working somewhere and you get access to checks coming in. So you go form a company in another state that sounds just like the name on the checks that are coming in. And you start taking those checks and putting them in your own bank account. Well, think about that.

If you’re a corporation you’re in management and you have a uncle that forms a company and you start sending business that way, and before, you know it, you’re taking assets from one company and giving it to another company, which technically you don’t have anything in writing as an ownership of, but you have a conflict of interest and you’re breaching your fiduciary duty. And so if the shareholders and other executives aren’t watching what happens, it gets out of control quickly.  I would say 20% of our litigation every month is based on shareholder disputes fights between owner shareholders and the corporation and, breach of fiduciary duty.

We start with a thoroughly documented chronology, a mastery of the potential damages and all of our philosophies on how to prepare a case, as if we’re preparing to go to trial. That’s what gives us the strength to resolve the vast majority of our business disputes through effective, leveraged negotiations.  If a lawsuit is filed, we represent our clients in settlement conferences and mediation, in arbitration, and at trial.” – Dan Watkins, Founding Partner

Contact a law firm with decades of experience in executive disputes and executive severance. Learn how the Watkins Firm can help to make this a successful transition. We invite you to review our podcast Episode 14 – Shareholders’ Disputes as well as the strong recommendations of our clients and contact the Watkins Firm or call 858-535-1511 for a complimentary consultation today.