Commercial Litigation - Business Litigation Attorney

Commercial Litigation

At Scarinci Hollenbeck, corporate and commercial law is our focus. Whether representing a small startup or a Fortune 500 company, the mission of our Commercial Litigation Group is to always protect our clients’ legal interests and achieve their business objectives. To accomplish these goals, our commercial litigation lawyers employ a cost-effective approach through negotiated resolution of disputes and, if necessary, through aggressive and efficient litigation. 

A commercial dispute, if handled poorly, can do significant damage – not just to your company’s assets or net worth but also to your business reputation. That’s why it’s critical to work with a commercial litigation team that you trust. A team that understands your goals, prioritizes your best interests, and creates strategies and solutions custom-tailored for you.

 

Diverse Commercial Litigation Lawyers Prepared to Tackle Complex Challenges

Armed with decades of experience, our seasoned trial lawyers are equipped to handle the most complicated and high-stakes commercial litigation. When needed, our commercial litigators can also tap into the knowledge and capabilities of the firm’s multidisciplinary teams, including attorneys with specialized experience in financial services, technology, insurance, real estate, intellectual property, and entertainment.

We routinely handle commercial litigation involving:

• Accounting and auditing actions
• Bankruptcy claims
• Breach of contract
• Breach of fiduciary duty
• Business and partnership fraud
• Business torts
• Debtor/credit disputes
• Domestic and international arbitrations
• Fraud and misrepresentation claims
• Insurance coverage disputes
• Investor claims
• Intellectual property infringement
• Mergers and acquisitions
• Partnership and LLC member disputes
• Privacy and cybersecurity matters
• Securities Litigation
• Trade secret and unfair competition claims

Partnering With a Business Litigation Attorney Tailored to Your Needs

The members of Scarinci Hollenbeck’s Commercial Litigation Practice have demonstrated track records of successfully defending our clients’ interests. General counsel, chief executives, and corporate boards often call on our attorneys to provide strategic legal guidance and aggressively litigate critical disputes. 

However, not all commercial disputes have to go to court. Our dedicated legal team can help you use a combination of all the tools at your disposal – mediation, negotiation, arbitration, or trial – to address your situation.

The firm’s client roster is as diverse as the types of disputes we handle, comprised of national corporations, mid-sized entities, and small businesses. Our clients include prominent companies across a wide range of industries, including financial services, investment, healthcare, pharmaceutical, construction, technology, energy, media, entertainment, and insurance. While many of the businesses we serve are located in New Jersey or the New York City metropolitan area, our clients also include national and multinational companies located across the country. 

Partnership Disputes and Dissolution

Business breakups and disputes between partners can put tremendous pressure on businesses and their owners. Our commercial litigation attorneys understand the legal and business issues underlying these disputes and have successfully represented numerous business clients in state, federal, and appellate courts across the country.

Whether representing a minority partner, venture capital partner, or family business owner, we provide every client with tailored solutions that meet their business objectives. All of our clients reap the benefits of our expansive business law and litigation experience, which allows us to provide strategic guidance that resolves disputes and even deters them from ever happening.

Partnership Disputes

Partnership disputes or buyouts can be resolved through mediation, third-party arbitration, or court actions. Each approach has pros and cons to consider. Sometimes, partners can sit down and meet in the middle for negotiations. Other times, partners are unable to resolve their disputes on their own and require judicial intervention.

Our Commercial Litigation Group handles all types of internal and external partnership disputes, with a focus on efficient and economic resolution. When litigation is inevitable, our trial attorneys aggressively pursue our client’s interests and have obtained successful results in both the prosecution and defense of claims. 

When possible, we also work with businesses to avert internal disagreements and prevent them from escalating, using legal tools such as buy-sell provisions, succession plans, and partnership agreements. Our capabilities are bolstered through coordination with additional practice groups, such as Tax, Trust & Estates, and Corporate Transactions & Business. 

Partnership Dissolution

Dissolving a partnership can be a challenging process, especially if the dissolution is unplanned. A partnership may be dissolved as a result of an agreement of all the partners, a partner’s misconduct, a judicial decision, or a dispute resolution.

In some cases, dissolution can be avoided if the partners come to a new agreement on how to proceed with the partnership. But more often than not, partnerships are dissolved and wound down because of disputes between partners that cannot be resolved. After a partnership is dissolved, its financial liabilities must be paid and the remaining assets distributed to the partners by whatever governing agreement is in place and/or state law.

Given the risk of liability, it is essential to follow the proper protocol when ending a partnership. A Scarinci Hollenbeck business litigation attorney can help you dissolve your business partnership efficiently and effectively while minimizing legal and business fallout.

Business and Partnership Fraud

Finding out that a business partner or corporate manager has been engaging in fraud can be devastating for you and your company. To minimize the risk of liability, it is imperative to take prompt legal action. 

Cases of fraud often involve intentional or negligent misrepresentations of facts by one partner to another who relies and acts upon that information – usually to their detriment. Scarinci Hollenbeck can help you cut through the complexity and ambiguity in fraud cases to the reality underneath. Even more importantly, our commercial litigation attorneys can advocate on your behalf, helping you establish that you were an innocent partner who had no knowledge of or involvement in the fraud. 

Fraud can result in serious issues, including the dissolution of a business, regulatory action, or even criminal charges. Examples of business and partnership fraud include:

• Inducing someone to enter a contract on false pretenses
• Misappropriating funds or property
• Manipulating an entity’s accounting records

When you work with our commercial litigation lawyers, we’ll review your case, determine the most important facts, collect all the necessary documentation and evidence to prove your claims and resolve any ambiguities that remain. Presenting your case before a judge, mediator, or arbitrator in this way increases your chances of an advantageous result.

Breaches of Fiduciary Duty

Fiduciary duties, including the duties of loyalty, obedience, care, and disclosure, are essential to many business relationships. If one partner intentionally or negligently breaches any of their duties, the other business partners must act – either through mediation, arbitration, or litigation. 

Once a business partnership is formed, each partner owes certain fiduciary duties to the other partners and to the business itself. Other fiduciary relationships include the relationship between a corporate officer/director and shareholders, attorney and client, adviser and investor, and trustee and beneficiary. In addition, a fiduciary duty may be imposed by statute, through a legal proceeding, or by a contractual relationship.

In general terms, a fiduciary relationship between two parties obligates one (the fiduciary) to act solely in the best interest of the other (the principal). A breach of fiduciary duty occurs when the fiduciary breaches any of the responsibilities, obligations, or duties that he or she owes the principal. To successfully bring a breach of fiduciary duty claim, a plaintiff must generally show that: a fiduciary relationship existed between the plaintiff and the defendant; the defendant breached a fiduciary duty owed to the plaintiff; and the breach of duty entitles the party to a remedy. 

Usually, a breach of fiduciary duty happens when a business partner puts their interests above the best interests of the company, often with harmful results to the company. A good business litigation attorney can help protect your business against these types of breaches.

Corporation, LLC, and Shareholder Disputes

Even the most successful business operations can become entangled in disputes with shareholders, co-owners, and others. Because these disputes often involve complex areas of law and regulatory oversight, you need legal counsel that not only understands the law, but also supports your business goals.

Business litigation involving corporations and limited liability corporations (LLCs) often involves disagreements regarding:

• Corporate management and operations
• Governance and direction of the company
• Amount of compensation paid to principals
• Minority versus majority shareholder rights
• Corporate buyouts and mergers

Shareholder disputes and other corporate litigation involving privately held corporations, publicly traded companies, and LLCs all come with unique challenges. They can also take time to resolve, which is why you need a legal team that can support you for the long haul. 

When you work with the corporate litigation lawyers at Scarinci Hollenbeck, we help you enact a unified strategy with your entire company’s operations in mind. This not only helps you save money, but it also helps decrease the chance of costly, drawn-out legal disputes.

Internal Accounting and Auditing Action

Scarinci Hollenbeck works with partnerships and other businesses to investigate accounting issues and pursue legal action when necessary. We also represent auditors and accountants in accounting investigations and litigation.  

Accounting actions are common among partnerships. Each business partner has the right to be fully informed of their partners’ activities related to the partnership, regardless of their percentage of ownership. This also gives partners the absolute right to review the financial records of a business partnership at any time.

A partner may request a review of the partnership’s books if they suspect unfair payouts, hidden profits or losses, theft of opportunity, or for any other reason related to the partnership. If a partner requests an accounting update but is denied, they are entitled to file a lawsuit. The denial itself is a breach of fiduciary duty and could indicate further misconduct by other partners.

Accounting firms and professionals also often face litigation related to their role in financial transactions and financial reporting, such as securities class actions, professional malpractice cases, and other civil suits. Our team of experienced commercial litigation lawyers has experience defending accounting firms and individuals in a broad range of litigation, enforcement investigations, and disciplinary proceedings.

Contract Issues and Breaches of Contract

The lawyers at Scarinci Hollenbeck are fierce advocates for our clients, especially in business-to-business disputes caused by breaches of contract. 

Contracts take many forms and cover all types of subjects – purchasing products; providing services; determining how a business will be formed, owned, and operated; and resolving how transactions such as loans or joint ventures will unfold over given periods. These agreements detail the legal boundaries to which all parties must adhere.

A breach of contract happens when one party fails to perform according to the terms of the contract. To win a judgment for damages in a breach of contract case, you must prove that:

• You had a legally binding contract in place;
• You performed your part of the contract;
• The other party failed to perform their part of the contract; and
• You suffered harm as a result of the failure.

Breach of commercial contract cases can become quite complex. These matters often require an experienced business litigation attorney to evaluate the facts and employ a legal strategy that maximizes your chances of success. At Scarinci Hollenbeck, our lawyers create a strategy tailored to your company’s needs – whether that involves litigation or alternative dispute resolution. 

Domestic and International Arbitrations

At Scarinci Hollenbeck, we are always looking for ways to achieve an early and acceptable resolution for our clients, which increasingly includes alternative dispute resolution (ADR). 

Many contracts have arbitration clauses that require disputes to be settled out of court in arbitration proceedings. Even without arbitration terms in place, choosing arbitration (or mediation) instead of litigation to resolve a dispute can save both parties time and money.

When you choose to resolve a dispute through arbitration, you will submit your dispute to an arbitration tribunal instead of a court. The arbiters will then resolve the dispute according to the terms and governing law set out in the contract – sometimes, these terms are modified to reflect the needs of each party. The parties agree to accept the decision as final and binding.

Disputes can be more complicated when international borders are involved. In international business, you have access to fewer courts that can reliably enforce judgments. You may disagree over which country’s law applies. Not to mention, there are language, cultural, and geographical challenges to overcome. When it comes to settling business disputes on foreign soil, your company could face an uphill battle with the potential for runaway costs. International arbitration helps by giving business partners a reliable forum for settling business disputes. Not only do you know exactly where you stand with each other, but you also know what terms and procedures to expect during the arbitration process.

Arbitration and mediation involve a delicate balance of protecting your business interests in a dispute and meeting the other party in the middle. It’s critical to get the help of a legal team that can handle this process with the strong but nuanced approach it requires. 

At Scarinci Hollenbeck, we work closely with our clients to carefully evaluate whether ADR can serve as a viable alternative to traditional court proceedings. When ADR is used, our attorneys can be called upon to leverage their exceptional negotiation skills and decades of dispute resolution experience to resolve the matter. Our ADR attorneys also assist clients with drafting and negotiating arbitration clauses; enforcing arbitration agreements; vacating, confirming, or executing arbitration awards; and appealing arbitration decisions. 

Other Business Disputes

Whether your business operates locally or across borders, conflict often comes with the territory.  Scarinci Hollenbeck’s commercial litigation lawyers represent clients in a wide range of matters involving commercial law. 

A talented legal team can help you avoid many legal disputes by proactively assessing risks and anticipating issues before they arise. A skilled business attorney is equally important when conflicts can’t be avoided — whether it’s a dispute with a competitor, a disagreement over the terms of your lease, or an action to assert your intellectual property rights.

Competitive Markets Require Experienced Legal Counsel

Commercial disputes between competitors often include business torts, which may result in lost profits, damaged reputation, loss of market share, and loss of competitive advantage We routinely prosecute and defend business tort claims, including:

• Commercial disparagement
• Conspiracy
• Defamation
• Fraud 
• Negligent misrepresentation
• Tortious interference with the contract
• Trade libel
• Trade secret theft
• Unfair competition

Whatever the case, an experienced business litigation attorney can provide creative solutions tailored to your unique situation. While this may sometimes involve going to trial, dispute resolutions are often possible through arbitration or mediation.

At Scarinci Hollenbeck, our clients come from nearly every industry. We frequently serve clients in the healthcare, pharmaceutical, financial services, technology, consumer products, manufacturing, energy, entertainment, insurance, media, and transportation sectors. Our industry knowledge allows us to provide practical legal advice that coincides with your business objectives.