Articles Posted in Business Litigation

The enforceability of arbitration provisions is a prevalent issue in business litigation involving disputes arising from commercial contracts. Arbitration provisions are not always enforceable under Florida law. Under Florida law, the arbitration provision must provide litigants with the same legal remedies that are otherwise available to them in civil litigation. To enforce an arbitration agreement…

Florida appellate courts regularly scrutinize the methodology used by financial experts in their calculation of lost profits. Parties are often incentivized to inflate their calculation of lost profits they seek. Expert witnesses who specialize in damages calculations sometimes testify at trial using damages methodologies that misconstrue the requirements of Florida law. For example, in State…

Under federal law, trademark infringement is proscribed by 15 U.S. C. § 1114(1)(a), which prohibits any person from the “use in commerce [of] any reproduction, counterfeit, copy, or colorable imitation of a registered mark in connection with the sale, offering for sale, distribution, or advertising of any goods or services on or in connection with…

Commercial contracts often contain dispute resolution provisions requiring the contracting parties to resolve all claims arising between them through arbitration. However, arbitration provisions are not automatically valid and enforceable under Florida law. The arbitration provision must provide the potential claimants with the same legal remedies that are otherwise available to them in civil litigation. “Although…

The recent appellate decision from Florida’s Second District Court of Appeal in Capital Wealth Advisors, LLC v. Capital Wealth Advisors, Inc., 2021 WL 4898462 (Fla. 2d DCA 2021), clarified whether a business can get out of a financially unfavorable contract on the grounds that its “lopsidedness or open-endedness” is an invalid restraint on trade or…

In business litigation, it is common for parties to assert claims of breach of contract and, in the alternative, claims of tortious interference with a “business relationship.” Tortious interference is often asserted as a “back up” in case the contract claim fails. Tortious interference with an advantageous business relationship is essentially a claim that the…

Under federal law, the term “trade dress” involves the total image of a product and may include features such as size, shape, color or color combinations, texture, graphics, or even particular sales techniques. For example, “[t]he design or packaging of a product may acquire a distinctiveness which serves to identify the product with its manufacturer…

In breach of contract litigation between businesses, a frequent issue is the amount of allowable damages. Florida appellate courts scrutinize the method for computing damages in business litigation, using the “de novo” standard of review (i.e., no deference to the decision of the trial court) when the method used at trial for computing damages involves…

In some business sales, buyers later discover material misrepresentations made by the seller to induce purchase of the business. However, there also are cases of “buyer’s remorse,” where some buyers look for an illegitimate excuse to get out of a business deal they wish they did not make where there was no fault on the…

In business litigation over alleged misappropriation of trade secrets, parties frequently dispute the legal requirement that the allegedly misappropriated trade secrets be disclosed with “reasonable particularity.” Florida and federal courts generally hold that when a plaintiff asks the court to find that trade secrets exist and that the defendant misappropriated those trade secrets, the plaintiff…