Articles Posted in Partnership/Shareholder Disputes

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While not occurring here in Georgia, a recent federal court ruling dismissing a shareholder derivative action in California is a prime example of the extreme importance of the procedural demands placed on the plaintiffs in a derivative claim. As a shareholder plaintiff, satisfying these procedural steps is essential to getting your case to trial. On the flip side, these requirements can be the keys to a successful dismissal motion if you’re the board of directors. Either way, having an experienced Atlanta derivative action lawyer is crucial to success.

To understand the lawsuit from California, one must know the background. In 2021, the State of California took legal action against a well-known Santa Monica-based video game publishing and development company. According to the state, the company fostered a “frat boy culture” that led to rampant sexual harassment, gender discrimination (in the form of unequal pay and promotions,) and retaliation.

According to some shareholders, the 2021 legal action was the culmination of a state investigation that dated back to 2018. Allegedly, despite its knowledge of the state’s investigation, the company’s board of directors failed to take appropriate corrective steps to stop the company’s discriminatory practices.

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It’s important to recognize that derivative actions have certain specific procedural requirements and that, regardless of the strength of the evidence a shareholder has, the suit will fail if they do not follow these procedural steps. As a shareholder, it is imperative to recognize the grave risk to your case; namely, a dismissal of your claims. As a corporation or its directors, it’s important to recognize how these rules and requirements can work to your distinct advantage, offering you the chance to defeat a claim before it even gets to trial. Whether you’re a shareholder, a director, or a business entity, an experienced Atlanta derivative action lawyer can help you ensure that you are using both the substantive law and procedural rules to your maximum benefit.

A recent derivative action from here in Georgia demonstrates exactly how a procedural shortcoming can scuttle a case.

The corporation at the center of this derivative action was an Atlanta-based entity that provided fuel cards to businesses. The shareholder, J.W., was an Illinois man who alleged that the corporation “engaged in a scheme to artificially inflate its stock price between February 2016 and May 2017.” The corporation also engaged in deceptive marketing of its fuel cards as “fee-free,” despite the cards having a variety of fees like program fees, account fees, and late fees, according to the complaint.

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If you follow enough civil RICO cases, you’ll notice that many plaintiffs’ RICO claims lack merit, sometimes obviously so. Of course, even when the RICO claim that a plaintiff has aimed at your business is one of those claims long on bluster and short on merit, they are still potentially harmful to you and your business. It is vital to take the case seriously and get that claim thrown out as soon as possible to minimize the damage it can do to you. To get that done, make sure you have an experienced Atlanta civil RICO attorney on your side.

A case that unfolded in Miami last year was the rare civil RICO case to make mainstream headlines. The defendant was a famous superstar baseball player-turned-TV-broadcaster. The plaintiff was the player’s former brother-in-law.

The player and the plaintiff’s sister married in 2002. Not long afterward, the two men formed a real estate business that owned apartments purchased for a total of $300 million, according to a TheRealDeal report.

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Any kind of business dispute has the potential to become contentious as business people who once collaborated transition to being adversaries. When the business in question is a family one, then the odds that business will become personal, and emotions will escalate along with it, increase exponentially. Whether or not yours is a family business, if you find yourself embroiled in a contentious shareholder action, you need the services of an experienced Atlanta business attorney.

Take, for example, the highly contentious shareholder action regarding a Toccoa-based propane gas company. In that case, a shareholder, W.D. filed an action alleging that the company president (who also happened to be W.D.’s cousin) had misappropriated company money and that the company board of directors had stood by and allowed it to take place.

Specifically, W.D. asserted that the president had used company funds to pay his personal bills.

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As a businessperson, you must face many challenges. One of the challenges your corporate entity may encounter is the disgruntled shareholder. Fortunately, the law limits what disgruntled shareholders can do by prohibiting them from undertaking a direct lawsuit (limiting them only to shareholder derivative suits) in many, though not all, situations. Whether you are a shareholder of a corporation needing to defend itself against an improper direct action or are a shareholder who needs to take legal action, you are someone who should retain the services of an experienced Atlanta business attorney to help you navigate your case.

Here’s an example from right here in the Metro Atlanta area. T.C., P.S. and K.W. were the three corporate shareholders of a suburban Atlanta-based mortgage lender. Each had a 1/3 interest in the company. After several years, the business failed, and the lender ceased operations.

T.C. subsequently filed a direct lawsuit against the other two shareholders, along with a number of corporate structures that P.S. and K.W. controlled, alleging that the defendants were liable for breach of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment and violations of Georgia’s RICO Act.

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Business and commercial venture breakups are a bit like marital breakups… you hope that everything will proceed smoothly and amicably, but it often doesn’t. When you’re a member of an LLC who has decided to leave the company, you may often simply want to go your own way. Sometimes, though, the LLC won’t let that happen. When that happens to you, make sure you have the legal protection you need from a vigilant and experienced Atlanta commercial litigation attorney.

J.O. was one of those kinds of LLC members. Back in 2014, he was one of the members who formed a Conyers-based multi-level marketing LLC. In 2017, after experiencing concerns about his compensation as well as the company’s leadership, J.O. decided to leave the company. Around the same time, J.O. signed up as a customer of another multi-level marketing entity.

After J.O. left the company, the LLC sued him on the basis that he had breached the LLC’s operating agreement. According to the LLC’s complaint, J.O., who had been a vice president of sales, had breached his contractual obligations by working for a competing company.

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Sometimes, some things that might seem straightforward still require considerable litigation to resolve. This is one reason why, if you are involved in a business dispute, it pays to have an experienced Georgia business litigation attorney working on your behalf. One example in which this was true occurred recently when the Georgia Court of Appeals issued a ruling re-affirming that LLCs are bound by their operating agreements, regardless of whether the LLC signed the agreement or not.

The case that prompted the ruling centered around a business providing outsourced payroll and human resources solutions to medical practices. Four owners of the business established an LLC. The LLC’s operating agreement called for each of its four individual owners, Richard, Helen, Marty, and Robert, to have one vote, either directly or through the owner’s designated entity. Eventually, due to a conflict, counsel advised the parties to combine the ownership interest of Richard and Helen into one new LLC called Practice Benefits LLC.

From 2010 to 2013, the LLC members allowed four votes to be cast – one by Marty, one by Robert, and two by Practice. Then, in 2013, Clark became the LLC’s manager. He refused to allow Practice to continue casting two votes and refused to allow any amendment to the governing documents with regarding to voting procedures.

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A ruling from the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has clarified which legal responsibilities an issuer of stock has when it hires outside analysts to write glowing reviews of its stock. The federal appeals court in Atlanta upheld a lower court ruling in favor of the company and against a class of shareholders, stating that the company did not have an obligation to shareholders or potential shareholders to disclose its business relationship with the analysts. Since the company’s nondisclosure wasn’t improper, and its plan of hiring analysts to tout its stock wasn’t an illegal price manipulation scheme, that meant the shareholders had no basis for their lawsuit. Whether your shareholder dispute involves a well-established legal claim or an issue of law that is unsettled (as this one was), it pays to have experienced Georgia business attorneys representing you in your case.

The lawsuit was a class action launched by shareholders of a small pharmaceutical firm based in Norcross. The company made several stock offerings in 2013 and 2014. During that same time, the company retained multiple outside entities to promote or tout the value of the company’s stock as a good buy. The promoters published articles with headlines that urged “Investors Should Consider” the company’s stock (as a purchase). Several of the articles did not indicate anywhere within them that they were authored by companies hired by the pharmaceutical company itself. The goal was to pump up the company’s stock prices, but the stockholders in the lawsuit did not allege that the firm engaged in a “pump-and-dump” scheme.

After the firm’s stock promotion scheme was exposed by other analysts, however, its stock prices collapsed from almost $16 a share to just over $7 per share. The shareholders sued.

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When you are pursuing a commercial litigation action in Georgia, you might find yourself faced with many different types of arguments about why you should not be allowed to pursue your case. While some may relate directly to the facts of your case, others may have nothing at all to do with the underlying facts that led you into court. Whether the arguments against your case are factual, statutory, or procedural, it helps to have an experienced Georgia commercial litigation attorney on your side to make sure that your rights and interests are sufficiently represented and protected.

One case recently decided by the Georgia Court of Appeals involved a defense argument built on a specific statute:  Georgia’s Anti-SLAPP law. The seeds of the dispute dated back to 2015, when members formed a Cumming, Ga.-based LLC holding company to hold some 2,718 acres in Santa Rosa County, Fla. An additional entity was formed at the same time for the express purpose of serving as the managing member of the holding company. There were four entities that were members of that managing member LLC.

Less than a year later, allegations were made that several entities had breached the holding company’s operating agreement. Specifically, the allegation was that they hadn’t made required capital contributions, a claim they denied. Nevertheless, the manager LLC was voted out as the managing member of the holding company and replaced with a different LLC. The members of that new managing member then announced their intention not to develop the bulk of the Florida property but instead to donate it to the government of Santa Rosa County as a tax write-off.

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Ideally, in a perfect world, corporate shareholders of a family-owned business would always get along and cooperate effectively. Unfortunately, the real world is not a perfect world, and sometimes shareholder disputes arise and end up in litigation. That is when you need to be sure you have experienced Georgia business attorneys on your side. One such shareholder dispute recently went all the way to the Georgia Supreme Court earlier this year, with that court reversing a trial judge’s decision and sending the case back for more action.

The corporate entity at the center of this dispute demonstrates the issues that can arise when family relationships and business relationships collide. The business, an electric services contractor, had been in existence since 1937 and incorporated since 1959. In 1988, the incorporator decided to award ownership interests to each of his three sons, all of whom were working for the company at the time. (The bylaws restricted stockholders to employees of the entity.) Two sons, Gary and Phillip, got 25% each. A third son, Doss, received 16.67%. (The father retained 33.33% himself.)

The sons moved in different directions. Doss ended his employment at the family business in 1994. Gary and Phillip went on to become the company’s CEO and CFO, respectively. By 2011, the brothers were in court. Doss alleged that he had not received a payment that the business owed him for his stock. All sides agreed that only employees of the business could be stockholders and that Doss ceased being an employee in 1994. Doss, in his complaint, contended that the entity’s bylaws required the company to buy out his stock and to pay him for his ownership interest based upon the book value of the stock. This buyout and payment, Doss alleged, never took place.

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