Complex commercial litigation involves all state-based or federal disputes involving business entities. Adding to the many litigations types a company might face, it is vital to realize significant changes in the law, economy, rules and regulations, and political administrations. Most of these cases wound up in courts where the likelihood of diversity jurisdiction is high.
These disputes escalate rapidly and have severe consequences when mishandled; it is, therefore, necessary to get early legal representation to get the proper legal strategy to guarantee a successful outcome.
Types Of Complex Commercial Litigation
Let’s look at various complex commercial litigations, then.
Employment Litigation
There is bound to arise conflict between employees and employers in a business setting. In other settings, conflicts are between employees and the company- considered the employer.
The cases presented by these employees fall under employment litigation, with both employees and employers having different legal obligations and depending on the circumstances of the dispute.
For instance, a company expects its employees to protect its trade secrets; the employee expects the company to comply with the minimum wage laws. Failure for either party in meeting these requirements leads to conflicts.
Intellectual Property Disputes
A company’s intellectual property may include patents, copyrights, trademarks, trade secrets, etc.- the intangible property of a company, business or organization.
Disputes involving intellectual property might include an employee contributing to selling the company’s secrets or misusing the IP of the organization; they lead to highly technical and complex details.
Litigation may also become necessary when an external party uses the organization’s IP or you are misusing another’s IP without proper permissions.
Breach Of Contract
Breach of contracts is more common than any other type of complex commercial litigation. They are more prone to occur during company acquisitions, contracts, and business purchases or sales.
Transactions involving real estate or business assets also form a major part of a breach of contracts. Failure to uphold some or the entire terms of the contract or issues regarding agreements might result in litigation.
Data Breach Litigation
With the technology of today, cyberattacks and breach of security have escalated hence the need for many businesses to devise various methods of protecting themselves.
In recent years these crimes have caused an increase in cybersecurity and data breach litigation. For instance, a company that has failed to develop and implement proper safeguards for the personal information of their online customers is liable for damages due to a data breach.
Since the federal government and states are moving towards enhancing and expanding laws providing greater consumer data protection, data beach litigations are likely to continue to rise frequently.
Shareholder Disputes
Working together in a business setting has a lot of challenges, and shareholder disagreement is one such challenge. Shareholder disputes pose a complex commercial litigation case that becomes contentious with the involvement of money.
These disagreements can stem from something as straightforward as certain beliefs that majority shareholders are listened to more than the minority ones; to complex issues such as corporate governance.
Breaching shareholder agreement is the most common cause of disagreements between colleagues and may entail; a shareholder selling shares in violation of the governing shareholder agreement or one shareholder deciding to terminate an agreement, especially when it is against the wishes of the others.
Other shareholder disputes include disagreements over the company’s direction, firing non-shareholder employees, capital outlay, etc.
Fiduciary Duty Breach
Fiduciary duty has four elements:
- Duty; a fiduciary duty entails one acting in another person’s interests and proving the existence of trust between you and the other person. When a person fails to act in the interest, yet they had a responsibility to do so constitutes a fiduciary breach. Such relationships include attorney and client, employer and employee, etc.
- Breach; you have to clearly show that the other party violated their fiduciary duty and show the damages you sustained by their failure to act accordingly.
- Damages; show the damages you sustained; there is no cause for the lawsuit when there are no damages involved.
- Causation; prove that the fiduciary duty breach is directly linked to your damages. Unrelated damages to fiduciary duty breach leads to no compensation.
Class Action
Class actions are also known as class-action lawsuits and permit one or more people to file a lawsuit on behalf of a larger group. Consider buying a product that, in turn, caused you to suffer some injuries or react violently to it.
Upon further research, you find you are not the only one but more people who suffered from using the same product. Merging all these cases into one level playing field saves on time and expenses- one lawsuit equals one judge and one courtroom.
Unfair Competition
It is not uncommon or unacceptable to get ahead of your competition for your business to grow and succeed. But it is fraudulent when a business entity uses misleading, coercive, or deceptive means in trade and commerce to arrive at such a conclusion.
When another company uses unfair competition, you might be able to take legal action and easily win the lawsuit when backed up by legal protection like patents, copyright or trademarks.
Unfair competition laws protect the consumers and the owners; FTC gets involved when the consumer is harmed by unfair competition like bait-and-switch techniques or false advertising.
Product And Professional Liability
When you hire an expert, you expect them to meet the industry’s standards and follow through on your agreement terms. On the other hand, when you buy a product, it meets a certain standard of quality, reliability anticipated and safety.
Failure to meet the standards usually results in claims against the businesses’ liability insurance.
In gross negligence or insufficient insurance coverage, you can use the company.
Trust BBLaw For Complex Commercial Litigation
Get in touch with our properly trained team of lawyers in New York to represent your complex litigation and offer advice on alternative dispute resolutions within a wide range of industries.
Whether you face matters of contract breaches, fraud, or mergers and acquisitions, our specialized and experienced attorneys will defend your interests.
We have built a strong network for achieving the expected outcomes, especially in client-critical and high-staked cases. Our litigators are equipped to handle every phase of your case and always ensure de-certification during appeals, therefore, earning favorable jury verdicts.
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