There has been a sharp rise in unfair business practices disputes in California.  The Watkins Firm has almost four decades of experience in these unfortunately common accusations and cases.  Unfair business practices takes many forms, and often includes former employees or business partners.  Is is possible to protect the trade secrets, customers and other aspects of your business and to put a stop to the harmful actions of business associates, partners, fellow members, officers and shareholders?

What Typically Leads to Unfair Business Practices Disputes in San Diego

What leads to unfair business practices disputes in San Diego and across California?  California has particularly strict laws protecting the business environment here in San Diego and across the state from “Unfair Competition” from former employees and business competitors as well as deception and fraud.  What types of practices can constitute unfair business practices?

• Theft and misappropriation of company confidential or trade secret information
• Unfair, deceptive, or misleading actions or information during the course of one’s business duties
• Violations of a fiduciary duty
• Misuse of power
• Theft or embezzlement
• Commingling
• Conspiracy and/or self-dealing

Former partners may separate and try to take control of corporate assets such as websites, business listings, public advertisements, or P.O. boxes.  Majority owners may attempt to complete a merger in an effort to water-down or eliminate minority shareholder interests.

Unfair Business Practices by Employees and Former Employees

Did you know that current and former employees can take actions which result in unfair business practices disputes in California?  This can result from employees who leave and take confidential trade secrets or customer information to competitors, or who try to use this information to start their own businesses. Unfair business practices may also be the result of focused solicitation of a company’s employees by either another business or a former employee.  Hiring a single effective employee from a competitor is not an unfair business practice.  However, conspiracy to hire multiple employees away from a company to diminish it’s competitiveness is usually a pattern of unfair business practices.  This is enhanced when the practice includes attempts to access, identify or steal trade secrets of the target business.

In many cases unfair competition practices in San Diego and across California can also relate to how a business competes within a given marketplace outside of normal accepted competitive business practices.  For example, a recent unfair business practices case against Uber was filed by the district attorneys for Los Angeles and San Francisco.  In this case, the plaintiffs argued Uber had violated California’s unfair business practices laws by misleading and overcharging their customers.

Pro-Tip: “We handle a lot of cases regarding business fraud, unfair competition, false advertising practices, and just general common law fraud between businesses.

So business to business fraud is a big topic. It happens. You’re in the marketplace, you are doing great, and all of a sudden no one’s coming to you anymore. And then you find out that the number one competitor has taken some of the elements of your website are saying bad things about you, or they’re doing a lost leader advertising bait and switch on the price. And they’re grabbing all your customers, but you have the best product and the best service. They are defrauding you out of your rightful profits. All of a sudden you’re not making the money you used to. You might be the victim of fraud and don’t know it. Go see a lawyer who knows this stuff. We’ll spot it.

Business partner fraud. This never happens until you make money. When there’s no money. I rarely, in fact, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of a case with business partner fraud until the business starts doing well. And then it’s so common. It’s crazy. People with all the greatest virtues you’ve ever seen in your life, you’ve known your whole life. All of a sudden your company expanding, doing well and money disappears. It’s just so tempting. It’s like gold fever. So that’s also includes shareholder fraud, officer, fraud director fraud, usurpation. That’s a fancy word for taking the company or corporate assets without any fair compensation or in secret. Then there’s the sale of business fraud. We do a lot of that. We sell hundreds of millions of dollars in companies. We merge them, we create partnership agreements for them. And we see the hardest part is when you buy a business, you want to know you’re getting what you paid for. And when you sell a business, you want to make sure you get the money, the price you agreed to, because these things are complicated. And you also don’t want to get sued later for inaccurate disclosures, some contingent liability.

In a business fraud case, you get all your contract remedies and tort remedies. You get double whamming contract remedies. You get to have injunctive relief. You get to have provisional remedies. That’s injunctive relief. You have stop orders, you get to have money turnover orders. Just tell the judge, I want that money back, order it back. You get to have general damages of what your lost profits are. You get to have your causation damages of how much money did I actually lose? You know, not just the profits but also lost money because …, whatever the facts are. And most of the time you get attorney’s fees, interests, and punitive damages. And there’s probably more, we’re on a topic where it fits into so many statutes that we can go really use the law in your favor. And also if it’s against you, we can advise you of all these threats. And if the opposing counsel is really not up to steam, we can let you know that sooner!  You may wake up to find you’re in a big dispute, and we can help you get it resolved quickly when you might otherwise think I can go fight on the way. The risks of “what if” are just too great.” – Dan Watkins, Founding Partner

Resolving Unfair Business Practices Disputes in Southern California

The business litigation and dispute resolution attorneys at the Watkins Firm have been resolving unfair business practices disputes and disputes between co-owner, shareholders, investors and members for almost four decades.  Ask about our unique approach to disputes which is designed to resolve them quickly and in a cost-effective manner.

It may surprise you to learn that the experienced dispute resolution attorneys at the Watkins Firm are able to resolve the majority of these cases through effective, leveraged negotiations.  This is the fastest and least expensive route to resolving any business-related dispute.  We also represent our clients in mediation, arbitration and at trial.

If you have been accused of unfair business practices in California or believe a former employee or competitor is using unfair business practices against you we invite you to check out our podcast Episode 25 – unfair business practices, review the strong recommendations of our clients and contact the Watkins Firm or call 858-535-1511 for a complimentary consultation today.  Fair competition is good and healthy for any business economy.  California has taken significant legal steps to protect that.