What are your minority shareholder rights as an investor in California? Are you concerned about your investment or that your rights as a minority shareholder in San Diego have been violated? What can the experienced San Diego shareholder’s rights attorneys at the Watkins Firm do to protect your interests?
The first legal step in any shareholder dispute is to prove you are, in fact, a minority shareholder. In order to assert any claim against the majority you must prove you are a shareholder of the corporation. It is not wise for the majority to attempt to contest your ownership position. The refusal to acknowledge your ownership interest is in fact strong proof of the violation of your rights as a minority shareholder!
The good news is California law establishes important rights for minority shareholders in our state. These rights cannot be written out of the corporate documents such as the shareholders’ agreement or bylaws.
The Watkins Firm has 40+ years of experience serving the business, science and tech, real estate and medical / healthcare communities here in San Diego and across California. We vigorously protect your minority shareholder rights as an investor in California, while holding responsible parties accountable for their actions.
If there is a way to attempt to dilute the interests of a minority shareholder, or attempt to cheat them out of their holdings altogether, we’ve seen it, fought it, and defeated it.
Pro Tip: We can protect your rights as a shareholder even months or years after the fact. For example, “investors in a medical instrument company were told after several month the company was no longer viable and would be shuttered. Imagine the minority shareholder’s surprise when a few months later their former business partners are driving expensive cars and moving into expensive homes. The Watkins Firm played a central role in identifying that some of the majority interests had taken the product overseas, renamed it, and were making a fortune. We aggressively and successfully pursued and protected our minority shareholder client’s interests in this multi-million dollar case.” – Dan Watkins, Managing Partner
Our skilled minority shareholder attorneys work to demonstrate the conduct of the majority interests clearly defeats your reasonable expectations under the circumstances, and the expectations which were central to your decision to become a minority shareholder. The second element is to prove the majority has acted in a manner that harmed your financial interests, prohibited access to specific corporate information, and, in some cases, get our clients access to the corporate books. Majority interests are required by law to act with “probity” and fair dealing in both the company’s affairs as well as their relationship with minority interests.
Our experienced business litigation attorneys work to clearly establish the actions of majority interests or corporate management constitute a threat to the present and/or future value of your holdings and that the actions of the majority were a clear violation of the standards of fair dealing established under California law. The evidence often consists of a pattern of behavior in many venues such as texting, emails, phone conversations, written correspondence as well as the lack thereof. It may also exist within the financial records and tax returns of the company.
The work to protect your minority shareholder rights as an investor in California requires extensive legal skill and experience.
We invite you to review our podcast Episode 10 – The Importance of a Strong Corporate Attorney as well as the strong recommendations of our clients and contact the Watkins Firm or call 858-535-1511 for a complimentary consultation today.
We will help you to protect your investment(s) and interests, and hold majority interests, executives, directors and officers of the corporation responsible and accountable for their actions.