Last Updated on 23 November 2022

By norlinglaw

Shareholder disputes can be toxic. It can result in:

  • Creditors not being paid;
  • Staff not being paid;
  • Directors taking remuneration they are not entitled to;
  • Transactions occurring without consent;
  • Loss of key suppliers or customers;  Unilateral decisions being made;
  • Assets being stripped; and/or
  • The true financial details of the Company being hidden.

Brent Norling and Xinan Zhang of Norling Law discuss the traditional approaches to resolving a shareholder dispute and a little known provision of the Companies Act 1993 that is not often used which can be useful for resolving toxic shareholder disputes. Often the ‘toxic’ shareholder is acting in the way they are out of a false sense of security and the perceived lack of options available to other (usually minority) shareholders. It is important that shareholders be fully aware of the options available, so a proper and fully informed decision is made. Our shareholder dispute lawyers offer a free legal consultation where we can discuss the issues and formulate the best strategy to resolve them. You can book a free consultation or download our E-book: The Five Options to Resolve Shareholder Disputes


You may also like

Ongoing Obligations with the IRD
Unfortunately, when a company is struggling to keep up with its day to day obligations, often payment obligations to the IRD can escalate. In this video, Brent Norling discusses the options a debtor has if they are not currently ...
Effectively Dealing with Shareholder Disputes
An issue we are seeing more frequently is minority shareholders views’ being disregarded by the majority shareholder. This typically occurs when there are no shareholder agreements and the majority shareholder believe it is their ...
Dealing with Letters from Liquidators
Liquidators frequently send demand letters. Some are meritorious demands. Others are no more than a ‘shakedown’ to get recipients to pay. Knowing the difference is crucial to determining the appropriate strategy in response. In ...
Page 3 of 18