Partnership and shareholder disputes
When the people running a business can no longer run it together.
How we can help
- Reading what the shareholders’ or partnership agreement actually says
- Advising on exit routes, valuations and buy-out mechanisms
- Unfair prejudice petitions where a minority is being squeezed out
- Derivative claims where the company itself has been wronged
- Dealing with deadlock in fifty-fifty companies
- Negotiating a separation that lets the business continue trading
What happens next
- Send us the constitutional documents and tell us how the relationship broke down.
- We advise on your rights, the realistic outcomes and the cost of each route.
- We negotiate an exit or buy-out, and litigate only if there is no alternative.
Fees for this work
Charged hourly with staged estimates. These disputes can consume a business, and we will always look at a negotiated exit before proceedings.
Common questions
There's no shareholders' agreement. What happens?
You fall back on the articles and the Companies Act, which rarely produce the outcome either party wanted. It is the single most common reason these disputes become expensive, and the reason to put one in place while everyone still gets on.
I'm a minority shareholder being frozen out.
An unfair prejudice petition may be available, and the usual remedy is an order that your shares be bought at a fair value. These claims are expensive and slow, which is precisely why most settle — but the existence of the remedy is what makes settlement possible.
We're deadlocked fifty-fifty.
Without a mechanism in the documents, options narrow quickly and can end with a just and equitable winding up, which usually destroys value for everyone. A negotiated buy-out is almost always better, and mediation frequently unlocks it.
Can I just take my clients and leave?
That depends on your contract, your duties as a director or partner, and what you do before you go. Preparatory steps taken while still in office are the thing that turns a clean exit into a claim. Take advice before you act, not after.
Tell us what's happened
Confidential, reviewed by a solicitor, answered within one working day.