Firm obtains preliminary injunction in shareholder dispute litigation
Howard M. Cooper, Joseph M. Cacace, and Rebecca M. O’Brien persuaded a Massachusetts Superior Court judge to grant a preliminary injunction to their clients in a shareholder dispute involving control of a medical cannabis dispensary and cultivation company.
The firm’s clients – two shareholders and directors of the company – obtained an order keeping in place a newly elected board of directors and new corporate officers. The order requires the company founders to abide by the actions of the new board of directors pending completion of discovery and trial.
The dispute involves competing lawsuits filed by the firm’s clients and the company founders arising from a shareholder vote to establish a new board of directors, which, once in place, voted to bring in new professional management to the company.
The judge ruled that the shareholders validly elected the new board of directors by majority vote, and in so doing rejected the founders’ argument that a super-majority vote of 75 percent was required.
The firm previously obtained an order in a separate case granting the clients an attachment of $1.2 million in company property and funds to secure the clients’ overdue loans to the company.