Joint Venture & Shareholder Disputes

CANDEY specialise in joint venture and shareholder disputes. Our lawyers have a track record of achieving outstanding results for majority and minority shareholders, partners, companies and directors in all sorts of disputes concerning businesses around the world.

We have particular experience of section 994 ‘unfair prejudice’ petitions (brought in the High Court and by way of arbitration), derivative and double-derivative claims, just and equitable winding-up petitions, claims for misfeasance or breach of fiduciary duty, and claims to enforce shareholder or partnership agreements. 

As well as our work in the UK High Court we work closely with lawyers in the US and offshore, with a number of our lawyers called as solicitors and barristers in the British Virgin Islands.

We work in partnership with our clients and forensic accountants in order to understand the true enterprise value of any dispute. One of our lawyers is herself a Chartered Accountant who previously worked in the forensics team of a Top 10 London accounting firm, and another fee earner trained as a Chartered Accountant with Arthur Andersen. 

We are regularly instructed on an urgent basis, often around the time of board or shareholder meetings, to provide advice on certain votes or resolutions. We work closely with our clients and other professionals to implement time-critical strategies. We routinely make applications for injunctions or other urgent relief in support of broader proceedings – often in different jurisdictions to the one in which the company is based. 

Our joint venture disputes team work across a multiplicity of different cases across all sectors. The issues are often the same, focusing on board control over global business.

Examples of ongoing and recent work:

  • US$ 1 billion shareholder dispute re a CIS bank involving parallel LCIA arbitration claims and related proceedings in Cyprus, Russia, Italy and New York. 

  • US$ 500 million shareholder dispute re a CIS mine in which CANDEY act for two BVI holding companies and a Cypriot joint venture company.

  • Acting for Peak Hotels & Resorts Limited in the famous shareholder dispute re luxury Aman hotel group. Opponents included Russian billionaire Vladislav Doronin and Swedish billionaire Johan Eliasch. The case was described as “a takeover battle the likes of which the luxury hotel industry has never seen” and involved more than 10 hearings before 7 different High Court judges. It was one of The Lawyer’s ‘Top 20 Cases of 2020’ and featured a novel double-derivative application in the BVI. CANDEY still act for Aman’s founder, Adrian Zecha. 

  • Acting for the founder and majority shareholder of a £100 million commercial property group in bringing a derivative claim against the minority shareholder. The case involved additional claims for breach of fiduciary duty and apparent tax fraud with successful applications for injunctions against the minority shareholder and related companies. 

  • Acting for a minority partner in an LLP dispute re a large asset management fund with related arbitration proceedings. 

  • Acting for an offshore minority shareholder in unfair prejudice proceedings re a large London property group.

  • Acting for the majority shareholders in unfair prejudice proceedings re a multi-million FinTech business. 

  • Advising one set of JV partners in bringing claims arising from complex financial instruments in the renewable energy sector. 

  • Acting for a leading London casino and majority shareholders in striking out claims by purported minority shareholders.

  • Acting for a minority shareholder and technology entrepreneur in unfair prejudice proceedings against a London Plc. 

  • Acting for a technology entrepreneur and Luxembourg trust in unfair prejudice proceedings against a US NASDAQ corporation.

  • Acting for an England former professional footballer in unfair prejudice proceedings concerning a London property business. 

  • Acting for majority shareholders against a minority shareholder in relation to a company which was a successor to an LLP, and involves the interrelationship between partnership and company law.

  • Acting for a party in an Anglo-US joint venture involving prized and disputed intellectual property rights.