Shareholder Disputes

Since its introduction in 1980, the protection afforded to shareholders by the unfair prejudice remedy now contained in s.994 of the Companies Act 2006 (formerly s. 459 of the 1985 Act) has generated an enormous amount of litigation. As specialists in company law, we have been active in defining the proper ambit of the legislation: minority shareholders with a genuine grievance have been vindicated, and oppressive majorities have been restrained.

Of course, not every shareholder dispute lends itself to a petition under the Act, and derivative and personal actions and the just and equitable winding up petition remain as useful weapons in the litigation armoury. We specialise in them all.

However, we believe that litigation is to be used as one of the tools in the businessman’s armoury and not as an end in itself; much of our effort therefore focuses on achieving an efficient commercial resolution through the use of ADR, including mediation, early neutral evaluation and other techniques.