Our team has unrivalled experience in resolving shareholder disagreements both in and out of court. We also regularly act for Irish and multinational companies in implementing contentious and non-contentious cross-border mergers, capital reductions and schemes of arrangement before the Commercial Court.

Relevant Experience

  • Acting for Grafton Group Plc in successfully defending an injunction application by a shareholder to prevent the holding of its AGM under restricted conditions due to the COVID-19 Regulations. This was the first such application of its kind
  • Acting for for Bosal, a Dutch automobile company, in a Commercial Court shareholder dispute with its former CEO concerning the exercise of call options that would grant a significant minority stake
  • Acting for Donatable Pty Limited and Silverbrook Research Pty Limited, the intellectual property licence holders and minority shareholders of a high value joint venture which commercialises revolutionary printing technology, in obtaining the first of a kind quia timet injunctions to prevent majority shareholders from carrying out acts of oppression
  • Acting for the Blackrock Clinic, a leading private hospital in Ireland, in a series of long-running disputes concerning the alleged breaches of shareholder agreements, dividend claims, and conspiracy actions before the Commercial Court, Court of Appeal, and in associated cross-jurisdictional actions
  • Acting for Fyffes plc in a landmark insider dealing case against DCC plc and others. This was the first case of its kind in Europe, with Fyffes successful on appeal to the Supreme Court
  • Acting in many of the largest shareholder oppression actions brought before the Commercial Court (many of which are in camera), including Donegal Investment Group and its shareholding in Europe’s largest, and the world’s second largest, mushroom producer; Live Nation and The Electric Picnic Festival; and an individual shareholder of one of Europe’s largest fishing companies, Atlantic Dawn.
  • Advising a number of large Irish and international companies, including Actavis, Allergan, Accenture, Bank of Ireland, Fyffes, Johnson Controls International, Mallinckrodt, Medtronic, Paddy Power Betfair, NTR, Total Produce, KBC Bank, Lufthansa, Lhoist, Pentair and Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Warner Chilcott, in Commercial Court applications to approve cross-border mergers, schemes of arrangement and capital reductions.