Florida Business Lawyers Blog

When you are in the process of drafting a commercial contract, there are ways to accrue additional benefits to your cause. These ways can include the insertion of certain language. Sometimes, that additional language can be as simple as a single “magic” word. The insertion of just one extra word can make the enforcement of a contract provision (like a forum selection cause) mandatory and go a long way in ensuring that any disputes will be litigated in the place that you prefer. Whether you are negotiating, drafting, or litigating a commercial contract, be sure you are relying on a skilled South Florida commercial contracts lawyer to protect your interests.

In terms of a forum selection clause, the magic word is “exclusively,” as a recent dispute between a business and its investors illustrated. The business in that case operated within one of the bigger growth industries in this country – recreational marijuana. With each of its investors, the business signed a subscription agreement that contained a provision stating that all disputes would be litigated either in the federal court for the Central District of California or else the California Superior Court in Orange County.

Apparently having grown dissatisfied, several investors sued the company in Orange County. The investors, however, sued in Orlando, not Santa Ana. The business fought back by filing a motion asking the judge in Florida to either dismiss the case or transfer it to California.

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When you are the owner of highly valuable intellectual property, such as a highly sought-after luxury brand, you can combat counterfeiters by suing for infringement. However, simply getting a judgment at some date months or years in the future may not be enough. Those months or years of delay represent months or years of counterfeit goods flooding into the market and months or years of the value of your brand being diluted by those low-quality fakes. To prevent that, then, you may be able to obtain a preliminary injunction. That preliminary injunction stops the defendant from continuing in engaging in the harmful action, even before you’ve obtained a final judgment in your favor. To find out more about protecting your brand if you’ve been similarly harmed, be sure to reach out to a knowledgeable South Florida commercial litigation attorney right away.

A case from the federal court here in South Florida is an example of what a successful injunction request looks like. The intellectual property owner was a French fashion house and designer of luxury items. The designer owned numerous trademarks regarding lettering and designs that it used as its logos. At some point, the designer learned that an online retailer allegedly was selling cheap knock-off goods bearing imitations of the designer’s logos.

These inferior-quality counterfeit goods had the risk of diminishing or destroying consumers’ confidence in the brand’s reputation for luxury and highest quality. To stop this harm, the designer needed to stop the continued marketing and selling of counterfeit goods right away.

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Here in South Florida, the issue of a force majeure clause within a commercial contract is a very important one. The vulnerability of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach counties to hurricane-induced disruptions means that a tropical system has the ability to impair greatly your ability to satisfy the promises you made in your commercial contract, which is why you need the right force majeure clause in your agreement and the right South Florida contract lawyer negotiating, drafting, and litigating on your behalf.

Of course, on the flip side, you may also find yourself in the position of seeking to defeat a force majeure defense in your breach of contract case. Again, the right legal team can help you get that done and get the damages award your business needs.

To win a force majeure defense, the entity you’ve sued has to affirmatively prove that the thing that rendered it unable to perform as promised was a force outside its control. If it doesn’t prove that, then the defense fails.

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Success in your commercial litigation matter is often made of many smaller “wins” leading up to ultimate victory. These can cover a variety of issues from discovery disputes to where the case will be tried. Each one of these smaller items can be the thing that ultimately proves to be the key to success, which is why it is essential to have a knowledgeable and experienced South Florida commercial litigation attorney on your side from the very start.

For one defendant in a breach of contract matter, the “win” it sought related to where the case would proceed.

The underlying dispute involved a retirement plan fiduciary and an administrative services provider, P.F.S., with which it contracted. According to the fiduciary, P.F.S. improperly reached out to retirement plan sponsors and solicited them to work directly with P.F.S., which would have the effect of cutting the fiduciary out of those clients’ business.

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When you do business in a highly competitive industry, it is not unreasonable to expect that, at some point, you’ll face legal action initiated by a competitor. When the competitor that sues you is one of the largest businesses in your industry, you can expect them to come well-armed with significant resources. Whether the entity that has sued you is tiny or an industry giant, you need to have your own array of strong resources on your side, and that includes having a skilled South Florida commercial litigation attorney to help guide you and advise you. The right attorney can be invaluable as you make critical choices, such as whether to proceed in civil court or in an arbitration setting.

Arbitration has the possibility to save you immense amounts of time. That time savings can be extremely attractive to some businesses. If that’s your business, then the next key is getting your case moved from civil court to arbitration. One way you potentially can get a judge to compel arbitration is by using the other side’s own contractual language against it.

A business dispute involving a very large health and life insurance agency and an alleged scheme to steal its business is a good example of how one group of defendants did exactly that.

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In business, one element to achieving success is recognizing what kind of legal obligations your business dealings impose upon you… and what they don’t. Sometimes, the difference between winning and losing a contract case can be as straightforward as proving that an enforceable contract never existed at all. Whatever tool you need to win your commercial contract case, an experienced South Florida commercial litigation attorney can help get you where you need to be.

One way you may be able to escape liability in a breach of contract case is by showing that the agreement in question is void and not enforceable. A state court breach of contract case from right here in South Florida is a prime example.

A warehouse owner, seeking to sell a property, inked a listing agreement with a broker giving the broker a six-month exclusive window to obtain a buyer. An agent for the broker contacted the owner of the neighboring warehouse, but a deal was not consummated.

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