Business Law, Partnerships and Professional Liability
Our firms Business and Corporations practice spans a diverse group of manufacturing, financial services, real estate, design and architecture, and engineering services. This professional services-centric focus lends itself to a deeper understanding of the risk tolerance and the professional standard of care that guides the professional services industry in California.
- Business Torts – defamation; unfair competition; tortious interference with contract; breach of fiduciary duty; trade secret misappropriation, First Amendment actions, Anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation), slander and libel claim and defense.
- Contract Enforcement and Defense of claims – real estate; purchase and sale of goods (UCC); exclusivity, non-competition agreements; partnership and joint ventures; sale and purchases of business and related post-closing disputes.
- Corporate service areas include corporate governance, LLC formation, corporate formalities, corporate share reinvestment and buyouts, fiduciary challenges, shareholder derivative actions, as well as corporate breakups and dissolution.
- Professional Negligence practice includes legal malpractice actions, real estate agent and broker negligence, engineer, design and fiduciary standard of care actions.
Key Cases:
Dual Agency: 2016 Horiike decision extends duty of selling and listing agents to learn and investigate.
As brokerages insist on continuing dual-agency transactions, a frequent review of the Horiike decision is justified for all brokerage counsel. In 2016, the California Supreme Court held in Horiike that a listing agent in a dual agency transaction had a fiduciary duty to the buyers, to “learn and investigate” material facts that could affect the buyer’s decision to purchase. In Horiike, the agent Cortazzo made representations to an earlier buyer regarding the property square footage, that were not made to a subsequent buyer. The Horiike court found that associate licensees had the same duty as the broker Coldwell Banker. Download PDF Horiike v. Coldwell Banker