Shareholder and Partnership Disputes

Find effective commercial resolutions without causing suffering to your business.

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Facing a dispute with a company director, shareholder, or investor?

Shareholder and partnership disputes can arise for a range of reasons, but the priorities are often the same: to enable one party to leave the business, and to do so without causing suffering to the business.

Regardless of your business structure, this means finding a resolution that minimises conflict and enables both parties to move on with their lives. Our focus is on discovering the most effective pathway to this outcome.

How can Aptum help?

Aptum’s financial expertise and considerable experience enables us to identify, understand and manage the critical issues around business valuations.  When disputes threaten the continuation of a business, focusing on the most effective and efficient pathway to practical commercial outcomes is essential.

Aptum and its team has considerable experience and deep expertise working with shareholders, investors, partnerships and joint ventures in disputes relating to:

Resolving shareholder oppression disputes with a focus on value

Aptum frequently helps clients resolve shareholder oppression disputes both for minority and majority shareholders.

In our experience, parties and lawyers often get caught up in spending considerable time and resources in agitating and proving the grievance (the oppression) and have real difficulty seeing beyond the oppression. The existence of oppression is rarely the real issue to resolve.

In practice, one or both of the parties will typically seek orders for a compulsory buy-out of shares in order to achieve a clean exit with the real issues to be decided being the value of the shares and which party will be the buyer (although it is typically the majority shareholder who is more readily suited to being the buyer).

The critical message is: don’t allow a shareholders’ dispute to destroy value. Ask first whether the relationship can be repaired in a way that would allow the company to continue to function effectively, and then very quickly turn the attention and legal costs to outcome and value.

What makes Aptum different

Specialist expertise

All we do is litigate complex commercial and tax disputes.

Legal intelligence framework

Practical, ongoing risk assessment to focus on the essential.

Project management framework

Routine documented strategy through custom project management.

“Aptum Legal was able to grasp the complexities of [my industry], which previous lawyers were unable to understand. My personal preference is for Aptum Legal to open in Queensland.”
– Individual, Employment Dispute

Case study

An ousted business owner told he didn’t have a chance, then came to Aptum

Problem: Aptum’s client was forced out of his position in a co-op business in a highly specialised industry by the other shareholders. The client contacted several lawyers prior to Aptum who advised him that a shareholder oppression claim was unsubstantiated.

Aptum’s role: Aptum was engaged, and based an oppression claim on a novel interpretation of the Court’s powers to order compensation for our client.

Outcome: Despite this matter having been transferred to Aptum following a significant legal spend by the client, Aptum was able to strategise a legal pathway that achieved a successful outcome for the client whilst acting against a much larger firm.

Read Case Studies

"Commercial, strategic, accurate and well-thought out advice. Incredibly easy to work with. Nothing was too much trouble. Appreciated the thought given to the matter, and the innovative and strategic thinking. The Aptum team provides very safe pairs of hands which lead to a good result for the client."

– Anonymous (sourced from the 2024 Client Choice Awards)

Frequently asked questions

Get immediate clarity in your dispute.