Hawxhurst LLP represents individuals and entities in a variety of corporate governance matters, including breach of fiduciary duty, executive compensation, government investigations, and officer or director disputes.  We work closely with our clients to develop litigation strategies that make sense for their business and that are most likely to result in the best possible outcome.  Whether we are taking on the government, the board of directors, or individual executives or shareholders, our trial-driven focus allows us to navigate the dispute in a direction that will maximize our clients’ success.

Some of our representative corporate governance matters include:

• Representing the majority shareholders of a private California company in heated litigation regarding control of the corporation. Shortly after appearing in the case, the Firm obtained removal of the “independent director” that the court had appointed at the minority shareholder’s insistence, and who was interfering with our clients’ right to control the company.  Following several days of argument on a motion to dissolve an injunction that the court had issued against our clients prior to our involvement, the Firm obtained an agreement from the corporation’s minority shareholder to settle the entire litigation on favorable terms.
• Taking over a lawsuit filed against a major Chinese industrial company and its chairman over control of a U.S. joint venture. After being hired, the Firm immediately filed cross-claims and motions to compel discovery that the other side had refused to produce.  We sought and obtained discovery in China demonstrating that plaintiff’s allegations of wrongdoing were false.  We also obtained a court order requiring the president of the joint venture to turn over a laptop that he had confiscated from one of our employees because it included her personal information, including private photos.  At his deposition, the executive was forced to admit that he had reviewed and kept copies of these private photos and that he was unaware of any facts to support several allegations in the complaint.  The case was resolved days later on terms very favorable to our client, including payment to our client, the defendant.
• Securing a $6 million arbitration award for an executive of a public home improvement company. Our client had been granted stock in the defendant company prior to its initial public offering.  A dispute with the founder (our client’s older brother) led to the purported cancelling of those options.  Our Firm was hired after prior counsel had missed an important deadline and suffered several adverse rulings from the arbitrator.  Following a two-week arbitration, our client was awarded over $6 million.