RKKW law firm clients win dispute over exercise of voting rights on shares

One of the minority shareholders of a public company filed a lawsuit against the firm’s clients, including the majority shareholder of that issuer, attempting to deprive him of the ability to exercise his voting rights on his shares. The suit thus concerned one of the most important corporate rights of any shareholder. The importance of the case is also reflected in the value of the subject matter of the dispute, which was set at more than one hundred million zlotys. This is, after all, the value of the shares held by RKKW’s client, from which the exercise of voting rights was questioned.

The basis for the claim formulated in the lawsuit was the alleged failure of the client of the law firm RKKW to perform the notification obligations that are incumbent on shareholders of public companies with significant shareholdings. Their non-performance can, in principle, actualize the sanction of losing the ability to exercise voting rights. However, the RKKW Law Firm proved during the court proceedings that there are no grounds in this case for applying these strict sanction provisions to its Client.

The court upheld the position presented by RKKW Law Firm, as a result of which the action against our clients was dismissed in its entirety. The Clients were also awarded reimbursement of the costs of the proceedings.

“Satisfaction with the obtained settlement is all the greater, as this ruling should have a significant impact on the other lawsuits pending between the conflicted parties. The proceedings in question are one of many in which the axis of the dispute is the ability of our client to exercise voting rights from the majority stake in a public company held by him. On the other hand, the mentioned judgment is the first ruling made in the framework of the induced corporate dispute (not taking into account numerous decisions dismissing the opponent’s motions to secure the claims asserted by him).”- comments Karol Maciej Szymanski, Managing Partner at RKKW, who manages legal services for clients in the discussed case.

On the other hand, in the context of court proceedings, clients are represented by attorney Piotr Frelak, attorney-at-Law Kornelia Luczejko and attorney  Karolina Kobojek.