Litigation on Business, Construction, and Commercial Disputes
Litigation has become increasingly complex, difficult and expensive in business and commercial disputes. The causes of this trend are many, including increased complexity of the underlying business issues, electronic discovery costs, sharp business dealings, and inexperienced and unsophisticated lawyers who “shoot from the hip” with “shotgun” style pleadings routinely accusing even the most honest businessmen and women of fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and worse. Many good judges unfortunately lack any serious business experience, so they also have a very hard time understanding the underlying transactions giving rise to the disputes.
Our experience ranges from complex commercial and business litigation involving the purchase and sale of businesses and franchises, to construction litigation, to more straightforward commercial collections.
Complex Business and Commercial Litigation
We have tremendous depth of experience resolving business disputes in a timely, cost effective manner. All of our lawyers have started with business degrees and have business experience. We know how to read and analyze complex documents and how to explain the structure of business dealings, whether loans, business purchase and sales, franchise agreements, or futures and derivative transactions. We know how to focus on the core of the dispute and how to obtain and preserve the key evidence, which allows us to avoid unnecessary discovery including costly depositions.
We handle cases on an variety of fee arrangements and our total fees and costs are frequently a small fraction of those being charged by national firms.
We would be happy to discuss any business dispute you may see or contemplate so that we can explore whether our more efficient, directed, and focused approach may be what you need.
Representative Complex Commercial Litigation
Perestroika Joint Venture litigation: One of the largest Russian-American joint ventures in Moscow, Russia, engaged us to provide litigation defense in four (4) interrelated contract disputes involving $13 Million U.S.D. of claims arising from an international construction project. Result: All litigation, claims, and future claims favorably terminated, after arbitration, at a gross cost to client of less than 4% of Claims.
Computone, Inc., v. Holland & Knight: The largest law firm in Florida engaged us to provided special trial counsel in a commercial dispute with a $11 Million malpractice counterclaim involving one of their former clients. Result: Trial to Jury Verdict in favor of Holland & Knight.
Abej v. Construtora Andrade Gutierrez: An international construction company retained us to prosecute a commercial arbitration before the International Chamber of Commerce in Geneva, Switzerland, regarding a World Bank loan commitment for a $45 Million U.S.D. International public works project. Result: Preliminary negotiations contained the dispute, by preserving all parties’ rights and claims, permitting the orderly completion of the project, which substantially reduced the claims on both sides. Ultimately, the remaining claims were resolved in Arbitration in Geneva.
J. Peek G., Inc. et. al. v. American Phoenix Insurance et. al. The Sellers of an Insurance Agency engaged us to prosecute a claim for final payment and defend a breach of warranty civil arbitration. Result: All warranty claims were favorably resolved after civil arbitration and our client was paid in full.
McPhee v. SSA: A business buyer conducting a “roll-up” to create a new national company in an innovative medical practice area sued our client, the seller of the largest practice in Atlanta, on trumped-up fraud and breach of warranty claims seeking to effectively renegotiate the purchase price, while naturally retaining the underlying business. Our defense cost a fraction of the plaintiff’s fees and expenses and ultimately forced the plaintiff to abandon the action.
Sypula v. Planning Technology, Inc.: We defended a small, high tech company from a claim for $1,050,000 in commissions asserted by a former sales employee who claimed credit for all sales to the GSA. Although this former employee pressed the case to trial, the jury rejected all claims and our total fees and costs were less than a fraction of the Plaintiff’s lowest settlement demand.
Construction Litigation:
We have worked with architects, contractors, developers, builders, and various construction trades for over thirty years. We understand the work that they do. We know how to read plans and specifications. We understand the AIA and AGC form contracts.
We also know how to try to resolve disputes and our first efforts are always directed at reaching some quick, cost effective, and fair solution so that no one wastes time or money.
We have handled many hundreds of these disputes and would be happy to talk with you about any such matter to see if we can help you.
Representative Construction Litigation and Construction Clients
SunStates v. V.P. Group: We successfully represented a sprinkler pipe fabricator in a dispute regarding a bad fire supression system at a Ritz Carleton Resort. The pipe was proven to be according to specification, but the design failed to consider that the water source was a low yield well instead of a city water supply.
Standard v. General Electric: We represented a commerical contractor in a successful claim related to faulty electrical panels.
Orion v. Camelot Club: We successfully collected on a materialman’s lien claim after the bankruptcy of the general contractor.
CSC General Contractors, Inc. vs. Drew: Superior Court litigation and AAA arbitration involving commercial construction project. Result: Recovered 100% of contract balance and retainage on behalf of Plaintiff builder.
Manouchehr Jahanbin V. Sykes International Group Limited, et. al.: Dispute over joint venture and sale of heavy equipment assets involving breach of contract, fraud, and breach of fiduciary duty. Result: Settlement on the first day of trial requiring time payment of entire balance secured by first position deed to secure debt.
Commercial Collections
For many years we have helps businesses collect money owed to them by their customers. Sometimes there is some legitimate disagreement or dispute involving a failure of products or services. But many times, the issues relate to an inability to pay and the goal is to help our client realize the full value of the claim without destroying his former customer or forcing it into bankruptcy.
Business to Business collections disputes are very different from consumer collections. There are frequently issues beyond an inability to pay. The lawyers must try to resolve the dispute while minimizing any adverse exposure in the even that non-conforming goods or services were provided while also trying to reconcile the parties recognizing that good commericial customers and relationships are hard to obtain and generally worth preserving.
We offer our clients a variety of fee basis for work in this area work and we allow our clients to chose the fee basis that they think will work best for them.