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Commercial Litigation
Here are the most frequent kinds of litigation involving companies.
The first one is to recover an amount of money owed to them by debtors. There is a special payment proceeding for debts proved by some kind of documents, such as invoices. In those cases, the debtor will be required by Court to pay or to object.
20 days after, if the debtor objects paying, a declaratory procedure will start to demonstrate whether the invoices were fairly claimed or not. If there is no objection, the enforcement proceeding will start.
Nowadays Alternative Disputes Resolution –ADR-cases are increasing. ADR is the way to solve disputes without going to the Court. ADR is getting more and more importance every day, and many companies decide to accept mediation or arbitration as a good way for solving them problems.
With arbitration, parties involved in a dispute submit their differences to one or more independent persons called arbitrators. It is often the preferred way for resolving disputes between companies due to the fact that arbitrators usually have a better knowledge of corporate law and commercial situation than judges. It´s a faster and more specific procedure, but it can be more expensive than going to the Courts. Finally, the arbitrator takes a decision called arbitral award. Arbitral award can be enforced as a judgment.
With mediation, parties involved in dispute submit their differences to one or more independent persons called mediators. Mediators assist the parties to fairly resolve their differences by negotiating a settlement. It´s important to remark the most important difference between arbitration and mediation: mediation settlement can´t be directly enforced.
One of the most conflictive areas in many companies is claiming for the liability of a Company Board´s members. Many times their acts entail damage for the shareholders or the company. There are two ways for claiming it. The first one consists in claiming liability for damages suffered by company. That way, the claimant will be the company. The other possibility of for the shareholders to claim liability caused to each shareholder, who will litigate on his own.
IP cases are also getting an increasing importance these days. Clients often come to law firms to ask about how to defend their IP rights. The most important areas in which IP must be defended are:
- Patents
- Copyright
- Industrial Desing
- Trademarks
- Trade Secrets
- Trade Dress
For companies, competition law is also an important aspect that must be taken into account. The states try to defend free trading and competition as the best way of having a free market in which prices are fixed by supply and demand.
It avoids market manipulations which could increase prices and harm consumers.