Shareholder and Director Disputes – Blog 1
Welcome to James Edward & Associates’s first Shareholder and Director Disputes, Blog.
Part 1: A corporate divorce?
It is said that January is a busy month for divorce lawyers, but it is also frequently a time when shareholders, decide that they need to make a break with each other and start afresh.
Clients naturally turn in the first instance to their accountants for guidance and advice as to how to achieve a “no fault” business divorce.
Over the next few weeks we hope to assist by informing you of some of the issues commonly encountered in dealing with the director/shareholder disputes raised by your clients, and their (and your!) potential involvement in unfair prejudice petitions under the Companies Act 2006.
We will be providing you with articles written by specialist litigation partner James Edward and Hugo Groves a barrister who each have wide experience in litigating director/shareholder disputes. We will start today by mapping out what matters we aim to consider in the forthcoming articles so as to provide you with a logical and clear path through the thicket of this often fractious subject.
We hope that by the time the articles finish you will as an advising accountant have a better idea about how to respond to client questions such as:-
How do we avoid a director/shareholder dispute in the future?
Can you as our accountant help us or do we have to involve lawyers?
Who can complain and how?
What is unfair prejudice?
What tactical issues should we have to consider?
How will the court approach the valuation of our company?
What relief might be ordered and what will all this cost?
We will be starting off next week by considering the use and role of shareholder agreements and other ways of avoiding shareholder litigation. In later articles we will be dealing with diverse topics including the meaning of “unfair prejudice”, the accountant’s role as an expert witness and the valuation of shares.
We shall also be shortly announcing details of a seminar on Director and Shareholder Disputes to be held in central London and you will have the opportunity to hear more about the topic of director/shareholder disputes and to meet the team from James Edward & Associates.
Written by Hugo Groves of Enterprise Chambers and Senior Partner James Edward of James Edward & Associates.
Disclaimer
The information and any commentary on the law contained in this article is provided free of charge for information purposes only.
No responsibility for its accuracy and correctness, or for any consequences of relying on it, is assumed by any member or employee of James Edward & Associates. The information and commentary does not and is not intended to amount to legal advice and is not intended to be relied upon.
You are strongly advised to obtain advice from a Solicitor about your specific case or matter and not to rely on the information or comments in this article.