Partnership Firm - Freezing of Bank Account
Hi, I am a managing partner in a small partnership firm with 80% stake. I have two other partners with 10% stake each. One of the partners have turned rogue. He doesn’t contribute to business anymore and have been threatning rest of the partners. Other partners ( me and the contributing/good partner) trying to avoid litigation have offered to buy out his ( rouge patner’s) stake so that he can retire from the firm but he has been blackmailing us asking for money equivalent to 35% stake and is also threatning to freeze bank accounts. FYI, only two signatures are enough to operate our bank accounts and there is no clause in the partnership deed allowing freezing of accounts by a single partner. But, we are extremely worried by this threat as banks are acting extremely cautious these days and our small business will be in jeopardy ( we need to pay our vendors on daily basis) . What is the solution in this case? We have arbitration clause in the partnership deed but the rogue partner is playing dirty tricks and arm twisting us by threatning to freeze bank account. He won’t accept arbitration and even if he does he would freeze bank accounts beforehand to ensure that we suffer and our business is spoiled. The intention of the rogue partner is to extort money and not to run the company hence amicable solution doesn’t seem to be a possibility. Can we get a court interjection beforehand, against freezing of bank account, citing ill intention of rouge partner and amicable solution is a distant possibility?
- A.Pande, Bhopal