Disputes among shareholders can significantly affect a company’s operations and adversely impact the individuals involved.
Stewarts’ Shareholder Disputes lawyers have an outstanding reputation for handling high-value, complex and often multi-jurisdictional shareholder disputes.
We have extensive experience in representing shareholders, members, directors, and companies – ranging from small privately-owned companies through to PLCs – in business disputes, and in representing partners and LLPs in partnership disputes.
Our advice is pragmatic: we combine technical expertise with the commercial awareness that is critical in resolving these types of disputes.
Our expertise in shareholder disputes
We draw on expertise from our commercial litigation team, as well as our specialist employment, tax, insolvency and arbitration teams as needed to ensure our clients achieve the best possible outcomes. Our multi-disciplinary approach enables us to identify and pursue bespoke, multi-dimensional strategies to solve the challenges faced by our clients.
The team also have unrivalled experience in putting together innovative costs arrangements for clients. The use of third party funding, after-the-event insurance and risk-sharing fee agreements enables our clients to manage risk and litigate from a position of financial strength.
Our shareholder disputes resolution experience
- Pursuing and defending unfair prejudice petitions pursuant to ss.994-996 of the Companies Act 2006
- Acting on behalf of shareholders against other shareholders pursuant to joint venture agreements
- Acting on behalf of shareholders to enforce their rights to purchase or sell shares under: sale and purchase agreements; put and call option agreements; and compulsory good and bad leaver clauses in companies’ Articles of Association or shareholder agreements
- Acting on behalf of shareholders and companies to enforce their rights in business sale agreements
- Acting on behalf of shareholders to pursue breach of warranty claims
- Bringing derivative actions on behalf of companies against directors and other companies
Recent cases our lawyers have worked on
- Acting for the defendant in a dispute between the two largest former shareholders of a national building products retailer, concerning the £87m proceeds following an IPO. Successful at trial.
- Advising a party to a major urban redevelopment project in connection with the enforced removal of its JV partner, including the replacement of the senior leadership team
- Acting for a PE fund in a partnership dispute with its JV partner, an occupational pension fund. The total sum intended to be invested was £150 million. The JV partner breached the partnership agreement. The parties achieved a confidential settlement
- Acting for a minority shareholder and director in a bio-tech company/quasi-partnership valued at over £1 billion. Two majority shareholders and directors sought to wind-up the company and allegedly misappropriated and transferred valuable IP rights to a newco in which our client had no interest
- Acting for C-Suite executives in disputes with their employers regarding entitlements under equity incentive schemes
- Acting for the respondents to an unfair prejudice petition, achieving a stay of proceedings and adjournment of trial with orders made in favour of our clients in respect of costs ‘thrown away’
- Acting for a multinational travel business in a dispute regarding good and bad leaver clauses following the part sale of the business
- Acting for a major advertising business in relation to a dispute regarding put and call provisions in a JV agreement
- Advising the shareholder of a distributor to major supermarket chains in a dispute with its business partner relating to breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duties, issues as to the legal and beneficial ownership of shares in various companies as well as trademark/copyright issues
- Acting for the shareholders of an oil company in multi-jurisdictional litigation against a Russian state-owned company
- Advising an Indian airline in relation to a multi-billion dollar dispute between various shareholders concerning alleged breaches of a shareholders agreement (LCIA, Indian law, New Delhi seat)
- Advising certain minority shareholders of an oil & gas E&P company in respect of an LCIA arbitration brought by a bank pursuing claims in excess of US$145 million
- Acting for a Saudi oilfield services company in ICC arbitration against its JV partner in claims related to disputed territorial rights to seismic exploration activities
- Acting for minority shareholders in a Companies Act claim in respect of the shareholdings in a leading City equities broker
- Acting for the majority shareholders in a large private software company in a claim against the minority shareholders, arising out of the alleged minority shareholders’ diversion of the company’s assets to other entities
- Acting for the majority shareholders in a private management consultancy company in their claim against the minority shareholder to compel it to comply with ‘bad leaver’ provisions in the Articles of Association to sell its shares to the majority shareholders
- Acting for a well-known London market insurance broker in a dispute between the shareholders relating to the compulsory acquisition of shares
- Acting for a billionaire in seeking to stop an attempt by the Joint Administrators of her deceased husband’s estate to appoint receivers over a major corporate entity in the group of companies she controlled
- Advising a client issued with divorce proceedings as to the control mechanisms, and associated vulnerabilities, concerning the family business held via various companies within a trust
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Expertise
"The team is particularly impressive in managing complex relationships and is commercially astute when determining how best to navigate such complexities."
"Practitioners are of the highest quality, extremely strategic but also strong attention to detail."
The Legal 500
"Stewarts have very strong expertise in handling complex, international litigation cases."
Chambers
"I found the breadth of experience in the team critical to both understanding the case process and to determining the most appropriate approach for me as an individual in the context of a multiparty dispute."
The Legal 500
Meet the Shareholder Disputes team
Our team has the size and experience to handle heavyweight disputes.
Many of our cases are international in scope and all of our lawyers are experienced in conducting cross-border disputes.
