Businesses in Washington and other locations in the United States spend far more on business litigation than those in the rest of the world. Companies operating in the real estate sector pay the highest cost for these litigations. As a business grows, it spends less of each dollar of revenue on these cases.
Common examples of business litigation
While there is some variation between different industry segments, most business litigation can be divided into these groups:
• Breach of contract
• Breach of fiduciary duty
• Class action
• Employment
• Fraud
• Intellectual property disputes
• Partnership disputes
• Product liability
• Real estate disputes
• Shareholder oppression
• Theft of trade secrets
• Zoning and land use disputes
Business litigation trials
Only about 3% of all business litigation cases end with a trial in court. The time to get to this stage is often about 28 months. In some cases, business litigation cases have dragged on for more than 10 years. One of the longest business litigation cases was filed on June 3, 2002, against the Halliburton Company, and it was settled after the Court of Appeals heard the case in June 2018. In the end, investors in Halliburton who brought the case to court received $100 million. Another very long case was brought against Symantec Corporation on January 7, 1997, and this alleged investor fraud case did not settle until November 16, 2012. A third example is a case brought against Centennial Technologies on February 11, 1997, which did not settle until September 12, 2012. Investors accused the company of falsely reporting revenues and net earnings in this case.
There are many types of business litigation cases, but they all share that they take a long time to resolve.