Co-founder fallout
Equity, IP, board control and director-duty issues tangle up in the same disagreement. We work to separate the strands and resolve them in the right order.
Relevant: Companies Act 2006
Disputes · Directors
Business Dispute Solicitor for Directors
Disputes that involve directors are different. The legal position is layered with director duties, shareholder rights, employment status and personal exposure — and the wrong early move can collapse all four positions at once. The work in the first ten days usually decides where the matter lands.
Business Dispute Solicitor for Directors.
Directors and senior shareholders facing a dispute with co-founders, fellow shareholders, the company itself, or an exiting party. Particularly relevant in SME and founder-led businesses across the Thames Valley and Oxford-to-Cambridge corridor.
Director disputes typically arrive through one of three doors: a co-founder falling out over strategy or money; a minority shareholder being squeezed out and considering an unfair prejudice petition; or a board challenge to a director's conduct that escalates into both employment and corporate territory simultaneously.
Common matters on this page.
Unfair prejudice petition
A minority shareholder is considering — or threatening — a section 994 petition. We work through the realistic outcomes before either side commits to an irreversible step.
Relevant: Companies Act 2006
Director-duty challenge
A director's conduct has been questioned by the board or fellow shareholders. We protect the director's personal position while the corporate process runs.
Relevant: Companies Act 2006
Director exit on contested terms
A director is leaving with disputed entitlement under the SHA, service agreement and option scheme. We structure a clean separation that holds.
Legal risks & how we manage them
What can go wrong — and how we contain it.
Director-duty exposure on personal account — uncapped, uninsurable, and easily triggered by a misstep in the first week of a dispute.
We map the director-duty position before any external move is made.
An unfair prejudice petition that escalates into a forced share-purchase at a court-set price.
We work the matter towards a structured commercial settlement before petition stage wherever possible.
Employment and corporate positions taken in parallel that contradict each other.
We coordinate the two streams from day one — they're rarely run by the same lawyer in larger firms.
Legislation that shapes this work.
- Companies Act 2006
- Sets the statutory director duties (sections 171–177), the derivative claim regime and the unfair prejudice route under section 994.
- Insolvency Act 1986
- Drives wrongful trading, fraudulent trading and transactions-at-undervalue exposure when a company is approaching financial distress.
- Employment Rights Act 1996
- Where the director is also an employee, the dispute spans corporate and employment law simultaneously.
FAQs
Questions we get asked.
- I think a co-director is acting against the company's interests — what should I do?
- Take advice before you act. Director-duty challenges are easy to start and hard to unwind if the early steps aren't framed properly. A two-day window of advice usually saves months of remediation.
- We're a minority shareholder being squeezed out — is an unfair prejudice petition our only option?
- Almost never. Petition is the formal route, but most matters resolve through a structured commercial settlement before that point. We'll work through the realistic options and the cost-benefit of each.
- Are you also acting for the company?
- Not on the same matter. Where director and company interests diverge, we act for the director and recommend separate advice for the company.
Topical cluster.
Speak to a business dispute solicitor for directors.
Speak to Radcliffe Enterprise Law for clear, commercial legal advice — by phone, video or in person.
Start the conversation