As a skilled Media Business Attorney, I get questions all time from clients about going to court to break up with their business partner. If you wish to break up with your partner and your question is, do I need to go to court? The simple answer is no, you do not. There are alternative methods by which you can resolve the differences with your partner. The first one, is a little bit difficult because if somebody wants to break up and you come to a room and say, “I would like to break up and here’s the reason why.” It’s recommended that you get an attorney and get some advice from them or the accountant. Two things are going to happen here. You’re going to eventually need an agreement that sets forth in writing how the breakup is going to take place and you need somebody to tell you what the value is.
You can sit down at a face-to-face and knock it out and negotiate the number and say this is how I’m going to do it. That is going to depend on the personalities, the manner of the attorney, is the attorney a litigator or a resolver, is he an arbitrator or a middleman. They’re the factors that affect that particular thing. If, however, you think the face-to-face is not going to work, then there are some other alternatives. You would want to hire a third party as mediator, somebody who has some experience.
Then, this happens the least, but you could go to an arbitration, which is where you end up picking someone who is going to decide the disputes between you. He’s going to decide the value, whether the termination the other partner wants are reasonable, whether there was a breach of any fiduciary duty or loyalty to the other partners. He enters, after listening to testimony, an award that decides what the value of the company is and what the interests are of the individual partners. It’s not exactly court, but it’s closer to court than the mediator, the trusted advisor, or the face-to-face negotiation.
If you have any questions about going to court to break up with a business partner, please contact our Media Business Attorneys for a free case evaluation.
This educational blog was brought to you by experienced Business Lawyer Walter J. Timby. Our law firm proudly represents clients throughout Delaware County, as well as Pennsylvania, the greater Philadelphia area, Delaware and New Jersey.