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You bastard found a loophole;
I had the mandate to find a way to have a heavily-regulated
financial institution make an investment in a field that was until
then forbidden. After a fruitful period of +Legal meditation;, our
client followed our recommendation. As soon as the regulatory body
found out about our creative way of doing things, their Federal
minister of that time called my client's president on a late Friday
afternoon, to tell him :+You bastard found a loophole ! I will be
personally watching you....;. Wow ! thank you, dear Minister !
Rich nephew, poor nephew, a deceased
aunt and a fraudulent will !;This was a difficult situation.
Heirs of an estate wanted to challenge a will. But in the group
of seven heirs, there was a very wide scope of financial capability
to challenge the will. Talk about alternative billing methods. Here
is what I came up with : four options available to each heir : a
fixed fee, an hourly rate, a smaller percentage and a smaller hourly
rate and a larger percentage. You guessed right, the richer chose
the fixed fee, the +middle group; took a small risk : a smaller
percentage and a smaller hourly rate, and the less fortunate went
on a strict percentage basis. Furthermore, unanimously, the heirs
voted that I was the only one that could accept or refuse any and
all offers to settlement. The end of the story ? Well, everyone
got a big check...
Business partners splitting : just
like a divorce...
This is one of our specialized services. You most certainly
have heard a zillion stories about the nice little coupe that divorced
and went to an horror story. They ended up going to Court because
they could not agree on the ownership of the cat and the beautiful
painting by numbers that aunt Nina gave to both of them as a wedding
gift. Sometimes, a splitting partnership goes the same way. I actually
had to go to my clients offices to split everything, even the pens
and pencils. Thank God I am a Mediator accredited by the Superior
Court of the province of Quebec. !
I'm an expert in real-estate law and
your client has no chance to win; you should settle your case, Mr.
Audet.;
If you read my bio, you know that I am a truly believer in
Real-estate. I own, manage and operate Real-estate. I even did the
schooling to be a Certified appraser. In a recent litigation case,
I represented a corporation that gave a mandate to a Real-estate
broker. To cut the story short, the property was sold, but my client
refused to pay a commission. Sure enough, the listing broker sued.
It seemed quite clear to me that no commission was to be paid, for
a technical reason. But the other party's attorney was the one that
wrote the book on commissions... Of course, he was very generous
with his advice to me : settle the case, your client has no chance
to win. I was convinced of the contrary. The hearing was last June.
Judgment came out a month ago : I won !case dismissed with costs.
When a Shark Mortgagee; bites the bullet.
I represented a commercial lender that made bridge financing
for commercial projects. But he would go only for first position
mortgages. On this particular project, the owner gave also a second
mortgage, but to a private corporation with the reputation of having
a way to force the first mortgagee to sell him his mortgage at a
discounted price... At that time my standard caseload included around
50 NPL's. I knew the game and played it well. What happened ? Well,
my client repossessed the property, free and clear of the second
mortgage. The loss of that private lending company was so devastating
that it went bankrupt only a few short months after their loss in
that project.
Sometimes, your business lawyer is right.
This is a sad story. One of my clients was in a desperate
need of money for his business. This individual was around 65 years
old, and invested his life earnings in the business. He found an
individual with cash and willing to invest in the company. $150,000
for half of the business he said. I thought it was a terrible deal.
I eventually met the potential partner, for screening purposes.
I had a credit and probity check done on him. Bad, real bad... To
top it all, he insisted to buy newly-issued capital-stock of the
company, therefore not putting even a penny in my client's pocket.
In the Shareholders Agreement, the new partner insisted to have
a +Shotgun clause; that specifies that any partner can require the
other to sell him his shares in the company,at a predetermined price.
Smells bad... Nevertheless, closing of the deal was made in late
November. I just finished the Binder of the closing when I receiver
the notice that he was triggering the Shotgun clause, at the price
of $150 000. My client therefore lost his business, worth approximately
$400 000, and got only $150 000 for it...
Get the other party to pay my fees !
This is another case of split of partners, a business divorce
as I call it. There was anger that built up over the years. My client
was so frustrated that he was willing to give up his share of the
company just to get it over with. I new that there was many things
to be negotiated, besides a price, and that my client would not
be happy to have an important legal bill. So I convinced my client
that he should not +give away; his share of the company. At the
end, my fees were entirely paid by the other party, and my client
had a five-figure check to deposit.
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