No matter how carefully you run your business, you risk business disputes arising between you and other parties. For example, you may encounter legal issues between you and your partners, employees, customers, landlord, contractors, suppliers, and other parties. When a legal dispute occurs, you likely will need the legal advice and counsel that a business transaction lawyer at Kramer Green can provide you.
While litigation is the traditional response to business disputes, it is not the only way to resolve it. Here are four methods that you might consider using to resolve business disputes in your LLC or other business entity.
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Informal Negotiations
The first step to resolving business disputes is for the parties to sit down and attempt to solve the problem themselves. Legal counsel can often help facilitate this process. Ignoring business disputes is not helpful and often can threaten a business’s survival. It also allows business disputes to fester and worsen as time goes on. In some cases, if the parties communicate and air their grievances, they can reach an acceptable solution and move on from the conflict, one way or another.
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Arbitration
Under Florida Statutes §44.1011(1), arbitration is “a process whereby a neutral third person or panel, called an arbitrator or arbitration panel, considers the facts and arguments presented by the parties and renders a decision which may be binding or nonbinding.” Many business contracts require the parties to use arbitration rather than litigation as a more efficient and less expensive means of resolving disputes. An arbitrator’s decision can be binding in some cases, which means that the parties must accept the arbitrator’s decision as final, and the parties have no further recourse. However, in other cases, the arbitrator’s decision is nonbinding, which means that a party can take steps to challenge the arbitrator’s decision if they choose.
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Mediation
Under Florida Statutes §44.1011(2), mediation is “a process whereby a neutral third person called a mediator acts to encourage and facilitate the resolution of a dispute between two or more parties.” Parties to a dispute work with a mediator to help them reach a mutually agreed upon resolution. A mediator does not decide a dispute for the parties after hearing evidence like a judge or an arbitrator. Rather, mediation is a less formal non-adversarial process that aims to find common ground between the parties. However, if the parties cannot settle, they must find another way of resolving the dispute, often through litigation.
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Litigation
Litigation should always be the last resort to resolve a business dispute. Resolving business disputes through litigation is time-consuming, stressful, and expensive. You may find your business embroiled in litigation for months or even years, which leads to neglect of your ongoing business operations. It also can put your business in a financial bind that prevents it from expanding or even operating cost-efficiently. Finally, the outcome of litigation is always uncertain. You can never fully predict how a court case will turn out, so litigation always involves some degree of risk.
We Can Help You With Business Disputes
The business transaction attorneys of Kramer, Green, Zuckerman, Greene & Buchsbaum, P.A. have the skills and knowledge necessary to assist you throughout any business disputes that you might encounter. Together, we can work to resolve business-related legal disputes as they arise through all available means. Call our office today at (954) 966-2112 or reach out to us online to set up an appointment and learn more about the legal services that we can offer you.