Shareholder Disputes

Our team can assist in respect of all matters relating to shareholder disputes, regardless of the issue. We regularly advise both minority and majority shareholders.

Shareholder disputes are a recurrent feature of corporate life and often occur when a minority shareholder believes that a majority shareholder is not acting in the best interests of the company. Shareholders have a number of statutory and contractual rights. We will therefore always look to see if the dispute can be resolved by asserting one of those rights, and we will always consider those rights to determine whether there has been a breach by the majority and/or the minority. We will then seek to resolve the dispute depending on the facts.

Minority Shareholder Rights

Minority shareholders have other rights against the majority and there are various claims that a minority shareholder may be able to pursue to include a derivative action; a just and equitable winding up and/or an unfair prejudice petition.

Professional Service Provider Partnerships

There are also an increasing number of disputes amongst partners and these often occur when a partnership is looking to recruit, downsize, retire an older partner, shift its business focus, make changes, expel a partner for poor conduct, poor performance and so on.

These are all sensitive issues that need careful handling. We advise both remaining and departing partners in professional partnerships to include general medical practitioners, accountants, solicitors and architects. We advise in respect of expulsion, breach of fiduciary duty, winding up, dissolution and actions for accounts.

Next steps

Talk to our expert solicitors and find out how we can help.