Business Litigation

Posternak attorneys regularly and successfully try cases for our business clients in courts, in arbitrations, and before administrative tribunals.  Our business litigation clients range from international corporations to sole proprietors.  We litigate disputes relating to contracts, intellectual property rights, real estate and environmental issues, unfair business practices, non-competition covenants, employment relationships, securities transactions, regulatory and non-regulatory health care matters, bankruptcy proceedings, and many other commercial concerns.  We are skilled both in prosecuting claims when our clients’ rights have been violated and in defending our clients when they have been accused of violating another business’s rights.

We also understand how important and demanding any litigation is to our business clients and their key personnel.  Our clients value regular, clear communication about goals and progress toward goals.  We seek at all times to exceed those expectations.

While we enjoy trying cases, we recognize that a trial often is not the outcome that our business clients prefer.  Posternak attorneys therefore are skilled in negotiating settlements, including advocating for our clients at mediations, when an alternative to a trial promises a prompt, favorable, and inexpensive solution to a dispute.

Our attorneys include experienced arbitrators, who often are asked to decide the rights of parties in business cases.

Representative cases 

• Prosecuted, in the federal court in Los Angeles, claims on behalf of the nation’s largest distributor of satellite television services involving the most critical aspects of the client’s distribution agreement.
• Defended the sellers of a business that manufactures storage containers for spent nuclear fuel in a multi-million dollar arbitration brought by the buyers of the business, alleging that the clients had committed fraud and that the financial statements of the business did not conform to GAAP.
• Represented a major consumer products manufacturer in an arbitration, in Chicago, challenging the client’s warranty responsibilities for millions of dollars of product.
• Defended a well-known local entrepreneur against a securities fraud class action claim.
• Defended one of the founders of a local biotech firm against a claim that he owed a substantial “finder’s fee,” arising out of the firm’s initial venture capital financing.
• Represented a former high-level employee of a consumer products manufacturer, in a claim that he had been deprived of his sizeable percentage of the proceeds of the sale of the company.
• Enjoined competitor of a client, after a trial, from competing after the competitor had hired away a key employee of client.
• Defeated a claim against another client, again after trial, alleging that our client should be enjoined from competing with the plaintiff after hiring a key employee of the plaintiff.
• Defended a health care client in a case, tried in the Miami federal court, alleging damages arising from the client’s decision not to close on the purchase of a “turn-key” skilled nursing facility.
• Represented a sports agency firm in an arbitration commenced by one of its former sports agents.
• Defeated an appeal by an abutter, a supermarket chain, from a decision in favor of our developer client allowing it to build a shopping center on Cape Cod with a rival supermarket as the anchor tenant.
• Defended a real estate firm in an environmental case arising out of its construction of a sizeable residential development.
• Represented the corporate owner of dozens of gasoline stations in pollution claims filed by the Department of Environmental Protection and abutters.
• Defended a private equity fund in litigation involving a multi-million dollar investment in a portfolio company.