Are you managing a dispute with a business partner in San Diego or anywhere in California? Disputes between business owners in an LLC or shareholders in a corporation must be resolved as soon as possible. A protracted and substantive dispute takes your focus off of the operations of the business at hand and can cost you valuable business opportunities.
A dispute with a business partner affects the entire organization. Employees are more aware of the relationship between owners and managers than you might realize. The impact on the corporate culture can and will impact every area of your business.
The experienced partnership dispute attorneys at the Watkins Firm have more than four decades of experience resolving disputes between business owners. We help to preserve important relationships while getting to the core of the issues at hand and helping to negotiate a resolution. In many cases, a dispute with a business partner involves money, decisions about the course of the company or even their own performance (or lack thereof).
It might surprise you to learn your Watkins Firm attorney is able to resolve the vast majority of business partner disputes through effective, leveraged negotiation. This is the fastest, and least expensive path in this type of situation. More substantial disputes may require mediation or even arbitration. If the dispute involves real estate investment, a partition action or some other process may be required when managing a dispute with a business partner in San Diego or throughout California. We are prepared to represent and protect your interests in any way necessary to accomplish your goals and objectives.
When a dispute cannot be resolved amicably, it may be necessary for one of the parties to buy out the other. The operating agreement, shareholders’ agreement or corporate documents should clearly establish valuation procedures as well as how the transaction will be structured.
Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs download these critical documents from a website or simply copy a form they’ve found elsewhere. When the dispute arises it becomes quickly obvious that the underlying agreements are insufficient to provide a resolution, and an expensive and time consuming business litigation can erupt. Our seasoned professionals work to avoid this and provide alternative methods for managing a dispute with a business partner and moving forward.
Pro-Tip: “Let me give you an example. There’s 10 shareholders in a company and they’re not getting along and they’re fighting. So the majority says, okay, it’s not working. We’re going to sell the company for one 10th of what it’s worth. And then without you knowing about it, you learn a few years later that four of the six majority members took jobs in employment with that new company, and you’ve just been squeezed out of all your access by votes and by agreements and by people breaching their fiduciary duty. Or you might experience a freeze out, and it happens a lot. You got management thinking they have the right to do this and that, and you have this angry shareholder over here. And finally, they just say, don’t give them any more documents. Don’t let, them come to any more meetings and don’t pay them any dividends and just ignore them
Pro-Tip: “Let me give you an example. There’s 10 shareholders in a company and they’re not getting along and they’re fighting. So the majority says, okay, it’s not working. We’re going to sell the company for one 10th of what it’s worth. And then without you knowing about it, you learn a few years later that four of the six majority members took jobs in employment with that new company, and you’ve just been squeezed out of all your access by votes and by agreements and by people breaching their fiduciary duty. Or you might experience a freeze out, and it happens a lot. You got management thinking they have the right to do this and that, and you have this angry shareholder over here. And finally, they just say, don’t give them any more documents. Don’t let, them come to any more meetings and don’t pay them any dividends and just ignore themChange the locks, fire them, terminate their employment, do all these things and then they say, go ahead, Sue me.
Well, an investor, shareholder or business partner can be a squeaky wheel, and ask what’s this and what’s that. Or, they can come to the Watkins firm for a free, substantial consult. If we don’t get cooperation, we’ll file a lawsuit immediately. Or if we do get cooperation, we’ll look at it and we’ll try to work out the differences between the parties. Sometimes that’s all it takes is, is somebody in the middle to explain things to our shareholder client or our corporate client, and to go back and forth and, and educate both sides on what’s wrong. There’s a solution, and we’ll help you get there.” – Dan Watkins, Founding Partner
If you are working through a dispute with a business partner we invite you to review the strong recommendations of our clients and contact the Watkins Firm or call 858-535-1511 for a complimentary consultation today.
