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Minority shareholders who want to protect their rights effectively need to be more interested in the life of a joint stock company and in the actions of other shareholders. When the interests of the owner of a small block of stocks is still violated, then he should join the group with other minority shareholders, to develop joint tactics and to try to resolve the conflict with the company and majoritarian in the pretrial order. If it still came to court, then you should not be afraid – you have to be to be patient and try to reach a success in a higher court authority.

The shareholder who wants to protect his rights in such situations needs to take several actions at once, says the Ivan Babin, lawyer of S&K Vertical. First, to monitor if the address for notifications about upcoming meetings of shareholders actual. Secondly, to get acquainted with the materials that are provided before the participating in the meetings. This is especially true of the documents that appear at the annual meetings, says Babin. Legislation and judicial practice, counting the period of limitations, comes from the fact that the majority of significant circumstances of the participants of the company learn it at these meetings, explains the lawyer.

As the lawyer comments, that it is important for major shareholders to resolve the issue with the structure of the organization of their business: "If it is based on the principle of "matryoshka", it is necessary to take into account that the current law practice now is keen to refuse a beneficiary in the protection of his rights. Now only shareholders can dispute a transaction, require the losses from the management ". In such a situation, it is necessary to decide whether the advantages of such a structure exceed the risks associated with it, Babin says: "it мay be worth to hold a minority stake (more than 1%) directly to yourself to have a formal status of a shareholder."

Partner of Pavlova & partners Law firm Sergey Soldatenko:

"In most corporate disputes, the main problem is the inability of shareholders to obtain information about the company's activities promptly and objectively. Current legislation and judicial practice have only begun to be improved for this situation in the last few years. The situation with corporate conflicts is significantly changed because of the doctrine of tearing away a corporate veil, the introduction of the analogue of the French Institute "astrand", a shift of the burden of proof to the unfair management of companies and the appearance of a wide possibility of an appealing of transactions. Perhaps the main problem is still the fear of the courts to use the new institutions. Often minority shareholders manage to change course of struggle only in higher court authorities, where judges seem to be more daring."

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