HMB litigators Hal J. Wood and Matthew R. Barrett secured a complete victory in a recent highly contested post-transaction dispute. The team obtained summary judgment in their clients’ favor on all counts, including an award of 100% of the clients’ attorneys’ fees, resulting in a total judgment of over $9,000,000 in favor of HMB’s clients.
HMB’s clients were the sellers of a family-owned business to a private-equity backed strategic buyer. The deal was partly seller-financed, with the sellers to receive a substantial portion of the purchase price from the buyer after closing pursuant to the terms of a promissory note. The buyer, however, claimed that the sellers breached certain representations in the parties’ purchase agreement and refused to pay the balance of the purchase price.
After conducting extensive discovery, HMB’s litigation team was able to establish that the sellers did not breach any representations in the purchase agreement and that the buyer had no basis to refuse to pay the balance of the purchase price. The court ruled, therefore, that the buyer was required to pay full amount of the multi-million dollar balance of the purchase price to the sellers as well as prejudgment interest and all of the sellers’ attorneys’ fees that they incurred in enforcing their rights to the full amount of the purchase price.