These are business related disputes. However, they often overlap with employment disputes and civil claims. I have successfully represented people harmed by former business partners and associates or through fraud or other commercial matters. I represented the founder of a Wealth Management Firm who was fired from his position with his ownership in the company transformed into a liability after those in control of the business stopped paying stock dividends and created a situation that rendered my client’s stock ownership a tax liability. We proved that these actions were all part of a conspiracy and scheme to “freeze-out” my client, the business’s founder and its former Chief Executive Officer and President. The case resulted in a verdict in favor of my client for a multi-million-dollar damages award. We brought the case pursuant to the Pennsylvania Minority Shareholder Freeze-Out Statute, 15 Pa. C.S.A. § 1767. The statute is premised upon classic American law, from over a century ago, that finds that business principals owe one another a fiduciary duty of fair and honest dealing that, if breached in bad faith, creates a civil cause of action. The Pennsylvania “anti-Freeze-out or Oppression” statute is explicit in its creation of a “statutory foundation for . . .safeguards” to protect members of small corporations and other similar businesses. Based on the case, I wrote a law review article, published by the Pennsylvania Bar Association Law Review, Bugay, Minority Shareholder Freeze-Out Litigation in Pennsylvania: Remedies Provided at Common Law and By Section 1767 of the Pennsylvania Business Corporation Law, 84 Pa. Bar Ass’n Quarterly 113 (July 2013).
Commercial disputes arise whenever a party to a contract violates its contractual obligations. This includes where a party has stolen or embezzled property or which has otherwise attempted to convert ownership from the property’s true owner. For example, I resolved an art consignment case where the art dealer failed to report sales and kept the consigned property in the dealer’s home, away from the market where it was to be sold. This was conversion of property and resulted in an accounting, return of unsold property, and the provision of financial damages in settlement.
I represented a Polish woman, who worked as an office cleaner and who was attempting to send money to her son in Poland through a courier, in a series of transactions made through a local bank. I was able to secure a settlement for the woman that included the return of her funds with additional settlement compensation.
