“We spoke with you ‘x’ years ago – when we asked for help with preparing a shareholders agreement, and you advised us that we should ideally draft a completely ‘water-tight’ bespoke set of Articles of Association for our company (and merely have a simple ‘wrap-around’ shareholders agreement – dealing with such matters as are best dealt with in such a document).
However, we decided to go with a cheaper option fee quote that we received from someone else – who drafted us a shareholders agreement (which ‘coincidentally’ we never ultimately finalised, nor accordingly got executed – so that we accept it isn’t legally binding), and now (in this economic climate) we are having ‘serious issues between us’.
Please help us (as the firm we originally instructed – and – who drafted the shareholders agreement are not returning our calls).”
Lord, Pray = Give Me Strength – If only I had a pound for every time I have had this conversation (and that’s just in the last week/month)!
Dan.Johnson@EquitableLaw.com
+44 (0) 7788 537 187 – U.K. Cell. (& e-)Tel.
www.EquitableLaw.com
P.S. It is usually that case that the ‘someone else’ who drafted the relevant shareholders agreement, didn’t really know what they were doing – but they found a template (online), ‘filled in the blanks’ for a fee paid by those who approached them (and are now re-presented with a historic client – who is questioning the efficacy of their work), and they have absolutely no idea what to now do; and they realise they b*ggered up in never originally getting the shareholders agreement finalised and executed so as to be legally binding – i.e. their client paid ‘money for nothing’ (!) . . .
