Litigation, by its nature, is complicated and involves high stakes. However, some commercial litigation cases become even more complicated due to the parties, jurisdictions, and issues involved.
When dealing with these cases, you need someone knowledgeable about commercial litigation and familiar with the processes courts use to manage complex cases.
The lawyers at Lantz Law Group have extensive experience handling complex commercial litigation in both state and federal court.
Call today at 719-212-2022 or contact us to schedule a consultation.
What Is Commercial Litigation?
Complex commercial litigation requires a definition for three terms. First, “litigation” refers to the process of preparing, filing, and conducting a lawsuit.
Second, the term “commercial” can have many meanings. It can include any type of litigation involving a business entity like a corporation, partnership, or limited liability company. Under this broad definition, commercial litigation could include product liability, mass tort, and bankruptcy cases.
There is also a narrower definition. Under this one, commercial litigation involves disputes between business entities. Thus, a case between a company and its competitors, vendors, or lenders could qualify as commercial litigation. A case involving consumers or shareholders might not qualify under this narrower interpretation.
What Makes Litigation Complex?
The phrase “complex” refers to the practical or legal issues involved in the case. A case might be considered complex if it includes:
- Multiple parties, such as a class action lawsuit
- Parties located in different jurisdictions
- Multiple claims
- Claims across multiple fields of law
- Massive amounts of evidence
- Novel and complicated legal issues
Complex litigation might include a class action lawsuit by thousands of consumers across the U.S. allegedly defrauded by a cable company that overcharged them. Because of the number of parties, diversity of jurisdictions, and volume of evidence likely to be produced, the lawyers and court face many challenges in managing the case.
Types of Cases Where We Can Help
Many legal issues can spawn complex commercial litigation, including:
Partnership Disputes
A legal dispute involving a two-person partnership might not present many complexities. However, the case can get complex quickly if the dispute involves additional partners and legal issues.
Shareholder Litigation
Public companies can have millions of shareholders all around the world. Even closely held companies may have hundreds or thousands of equity owners. When the shareholders have a dispute with the company or its officers, the complexity of the litigation can explode.
Intellectual Property Infringement
Intellectual property does not necessarily involve multiple parties. But it can implicate complicated science, engineering, marketing, and authorship issues. These cases may also involve huge damage awards, reaching billions of dollars. Finally, these cases can involve entities around the globe, such as Asian manufacturers, European distributors, and U.S. importers.
Unfair Competition
In its simplest form, unfair competition happens when a company uses deceptive and misleading tactics to confuse consumers in the marketplace, thereby gaining an unfair advantage over competitors. These cases can involve intense investigation to uncover what happened. Both parties will also need expert witnesses to explain how consumers responded to it.
Civil Fraud and RICO
RICO was originally passed to combat organized crime. Now, it forms the basis of many cases when a company is accused of a pattern of consumer fraud. Civil fraud happens when a company intentionally utters a false representation meant to cause the hearer to do something in reliance on it.
For example, a company’s customers might have civil fraud and RICO claims against a company that misled them about the nature of a fee by deceptively labeling it as a “tax.”
Class Action
“Class action” refers to a court procedure in which a group of people across the country with similar claims band together in a litigation as a “class.” These cases may require commercial litigation lawyers to travel nationwide to build their case.
Multidistrict Litigation
“Multidistrict litigation” refers to another court procedure for simplifying a complex federal case. In these situations, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation can transfer similar cases to a single court for pretrial proceedings to improve efficiency. Rather than using a single complex commercial litigation attorney, each party keeps its lawyer, and the cases remain separate even though they are handled together.
What Do Commercial Litigators Do?
Commercial litigation attorneys conduct lawsuits by performing tasks such as:
- Pre-filing investigation
- Preparing and filing pleadings
- Requesting discovery and responding to discovery requests
- Filing and replying to motions
- Advocating at hearings
- Selecting a jury
- Presenting evidence and arguments at trial
The plaintiff’s complex commercial litigation lawyer will gather the evidence needed to prove all the elements of the plaintiff’s claim. The defendant’s lawyer’s goal is to rebut the plaintiff’s evidence and legal arguments. They may undermine the plaintiff’s evidence or gather evidence to disprove the elements.
At the same time, the Denver commercial litigation lawyer for each party will manage the voluminous evidence and multiple parties involved in the claim while traveling to multiple jurisdictions.
Complex Commercial Litigation FAQs
Here are some answers to frequently asked questions about complex commercial litigation:
Are class actions the same as multidistrict litigation?
Both procedures allow multiple plaintiffs with similar claims to gather evidence efficiently. However, the main difference is that all plaintiffs join a single case in class actions, while in multidistrict litigation, each case remains separate.
Does complex commercial litigation happen in state or federal court?
A complex commercial case can happen in either state or federal court. However, these cases often happen in federal court for a few reasons. First, federal courts have class action and multidistrict litigation procedures. Second, plaintiffs can use federal courts to sue defendants in different states. Third, many types of complex litigation fall under federal law, such as patent, antitrust, bankruptcy, and federal securities laws.
“Eric set up my terms and conditions for my travel agency...
and helped me write up all my contracts. He is communicative, patient, extremely knowledgeable and my go-to attorney for anything my business needs. I highly recommend Lantz Law Group!
Michele Friedmann
Contact Our Complex Commercial Litigation Lawyers in Denver
Not every business lawyer in Colorado has the knowledge, experience, and resources to manage complex commercial litigation. When you face a lawsuit involving multiple parties spread across multiple jurisdictions with complicated legal and factual issues, you need a Denver commercial litigation lawyer from Lantz Law Group.
Call 719-212-2022 today to learn how we can assist you with your complex litigation.
The Lantz Law Group represents businesses in the Denver metro area and beyond.