The leverage located
Where your real position is strong, which is how a deadlock is actually broken.
Advisory on a live or looming board or shareholder deadlock, and the dispute routes out of it.
A deadlock is a dispute that paralyses the asset it is fought over. When equal holders cannot agree, or a board splits, the company stops being able to act, and every day of standoff costs value. The firm advises on a deadlock that is here or coming, and on the routes out - the leverage, the relief, and the claims that break it. The work is the dispute, not the drafting of a deadlock mechanism.
The firm reads the deadlock for where the leverage actually sits, because a standoff is broken by the party that understands its real position, not by the one that shouts loudest. It maps the routes out - from a negotiated buy-out to court relief - and advises on which one serves the client's goal. Where the company is freezing into decline, it moves for relief to keep it operating while the dispute is resolved.
Where your real position is strong, which is how a deadlock is actually broken.
From negotiated buy-out to court relief, with the trade-offs set out.
Relief to keep the company operating rather than freezing into decline.
Two equal holders reach a standoff that stops the company acting. The firm reads where the leverage sits, maps the routes from a negotiated buy-out to court relief, advises on the one that serves the client's goal, and is ready to move for relief to keep the company operating if the deadlock holds.
Described in abbreviated, anonymised form to preserve client confidentiality.
Through the leverage each side actually holds, a negotiated separation or buy-out, or court relief that can order a sale or, in the last resort, a winding up; the aim is usually a priced exit rather than the destruction of the company.
Depending on the conduct, a minority can press for a buy-out, seek relief from oppressive use of the deadlock, or use provisional relief to stop the company being run against them while the dispute is resolved.
Yes, where the deadlock paralyses the company or is being abused, a court can grant relief, up to ordering a sale or a winding up, though that is the last resort and most deadlocks resolve before it.