Fiduciary Trustee Shareholder Director Officer Law

A fiduciary (i.e., a trustee, a business partner, investment manager, or someone else in whom you place your trust or confidence) has one of the highest duties known to man. "A fiduciary is a person who occupies a position of trust in relation to someone else such that he is required to act for the latter's benefit within the scope of that relationship. In business or law, it generally means someone with specific duties, such as those that attend a particular profession or role, e.g., investment advisor or trustee." See Wikpedia.

Mr. Fish has extensive experience in fiduciary litigation in Illinois. Examples of cases he has litigated include:

• Recovering over $10 million for investors whose fiduciaries negligently mismanaged/handled their investment assets.
• Defending and suing officers, shareholders, and directors of companies who are accused of misconduct and breaching fiduciary duties.
• Representing minority shareholders who are being treated unfairly in a company or being forced out of a company.
• Suing and defending partners who accuse each other of misconduct.
  

Trustee Litigation

The Fish Law Firm was retained to defend a federally-appointed trustee/lawyer who was sued by the Elgin Riverboat Casino in Kane County, Illinois. The Casino sought monetary damages and a contempt finding against the trustee/lawyer. Relying in part upon a 100 + year old United States Supreme Court case (Barton v. Barbour, 104 U.S. 126 (1881)), Mr. Fish was able to get the litigation dismissed with prejudice--and the Casino was obligated to reimburse Mr. Fish's client for the out of pocket attorney fees and costs he incurred in defending the lawsuit. (Kane County, Illinois; Judge Larson)

Mr. Fish recovered approximately $5 million for over 2,000 investors (through a derivative lawsuit) who had invested in a limited partnership commodities fund. The fiduciaries responsible for the limited partnership entrusted the investors' money to a company (Refco) who ended up filing for bankruptcy after its officers had allegedly misappropriated assets. As a result of the bankruptcy filing, Mr. Fish's clients were unable to access their money. After approximately one year of Federal court litigation in Illinois, a settlement was reached that provided an approximately $5,000,000 benefit to the 2,000 limited partners. In March 2007, Judge Wayne Anderson (Federal Court, Chicago) entered final approval of the settlement. (Franzen vs. IDS Managed Futures)

Breach of Fiduciary Duty and Minority Shareholder Litigation

In defending a $9 million shareholder derivative lawsuit, Mr. Fish achieved a complete defense victory as the 14 plaintiffs dismissed their DuPage County lawsuit without his clients paying anything. The lawsuit alleged our client had: looted the company of assets, committed fraud in obtaining investors, and violated minority shareholders' rights by oppressively operating the corporation. (DuPage County, Judge Popejoy, 2005)

In 2007, Mr. Fish recovered $1.3 million on behalf of a group of minority shareholders of a community bank in Illinois. The lawsuit alleged that certain directors of the bank had breached their fiduciary duties to a class of shareholders when the bank converted from being a subchapter C to a subchapter S corporation. The case was filed in the Northern District of Illinois and the Honorable Judge Joan F. Lefkow appointed David Fish to serve as co-lead Class Counsel for the minority shareholders who were forced to sell their stock. See Shearon v. Harvard Bancshares, et al, 240 F.R.D. 383 (N.D. Ill. 2006)

Click here for our July 2008 Newsletter about minority shareholder rights