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Declined VC wants us to pay legal fees

94 点作者 mntmn将近 9 年前

26 条评论

beat将近 9 年前
Don&#x27;t ask us what to do. Don&#x27;t ask Medium what to do. You have a VC... <i>ask them what to do</i>. Your current VC has probably seen stuff like this before. They will have legal expertise available to you, as well as their experience and their judgment. Ideally, you pick a VC based on their value besides mere money anyway. They should be good advisors.<p>If your VC says just don&#x27;t engage, then don&#x27;t engage. If your VC says pay them, get a second opinion coz that&#x27;s BS. But odds are good that your VC will happily call them up for you and give them a good stern talking-to.<p>For all the calls of &quot;sunshine&quot; here, your own VC is in a much better position to badmouth them than we are. Toxic behavior like this can get them cut out of ride-along deals, and they don&#x27;t want to lose the opportunity to be co-investors on the best deal flows.
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danielpal将近 9 年前
I&#x27;ll go the opposite of most of the comments here.<p>Assuming a NO attitude right from the start is probably not the way to go. Telling them to &quot;Pound Sand&quot; or just plain NO is not in your best interest. First, you should let the B investors know about this - ASAP. Second, you should start by emailing the GP at firm A and asking him to clarify why they think &quot;you should pay&quot; their legal fees.<p>With this information, you should consult your legal counsel on how is best to proceed. Most likely the A VC firm feels like you didn&#x27;t negotiate in good faith and you made them spend money with no intention to accept their offer. You should in this case talk to the GP at that firm and show him that you wanted to close a deal with them and you even made them aware of another offer and asked them to reconsider the terms.<p>Most of this issues are easily solved if you discuss things with the other party. Assuming a NO attitude from the start, just brings everyones worst character and might land you in a legal dispute.
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freddyc将近 9 年前
It looks like you&#x27;re based in Europe, so be careful relying on any US-centric advice if that&#x27;s the case. It pretty much goes without saying, but HN is not a proxy for proper legal advice from a local lawyer who understands the full fact set.<p>With that said, while you&#x27;re unlikely to be liable for their costs given the unsigned term sheet (assuming there&#x27;s no wrinkle in your local law), you don&#x27;t want to get trapped in an ugly public battle with a VC as it will potentially make raising funds in the future much harder - whether for Talon.One or another company.<p>I&#x27;d recommend talking quietly to the GP at Investor B and seek his&#x2F;her advice on how to settle this quickly, quietly and preferably with little or no out-of-pocket expense. Based on the facts laid out, I don&#x27;t like the behavior of Investor A so I hope this process ends with them reflecting on their actions and realizing that they won&#x27;t survive long in the VC game if they don&#x27;t adapt.
codingdave将近 9 年前
Just say no. If they sent anything short of a lawsuit, they aren&#x27;t serious. And if they do proceed to a lawsuit, fight it, and counter-sue for your own expenses and trouble. You signed no contract with them, they chose to spend their own money on the project, and they did not complete the deal. That is just part of doing business. You owe them nothing.
rwmurrayVT将近 9 年前
Maybe I&#x27;m just young &amp; naive, but it&#x27;s probably in their best interest to go tell Investor A to pound sand. I&#x27;m sure if Investor A consulted with their expensive corporate lawyer they&#x27;d tell them to go pound sand too.
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late2part将近 9 年前
One thing I see more and more in business in the USA is the lack of class, the lack of diplomacy and tact. It reminds me of my time in India where business transactions start off with a winner-takes-all mentality. More and more I see vendors signing an agreement that says X - and then afterwards asking us to waive rights or pay more or forgive transgressions; typically they&#x27;ll say &quot;We&#x27;re not going to do what we said, please give us permission to not do what we said we&#x27;d do.&quot; Of course, they do it slightly crafty, saying &quot;We need you to do this, OK?&quot; And invariably, me and my team politely says &quot;No, we will not deviate from the agreement without value, you will stick to the agreement.&quot; And invariably they do.<p>Tell these money lenders that you don&#x27;t owe them a penny, and you decline to pay their legal bills, and not to contact you again.<p>You may even consider this a fair credit issue:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;debt-collection-defense.whocanisue.com&#x2F;fighting-false-debt-claims&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;debt-collection-defense.whocanisue.com&#x2F;fighting-false...</a><p>Demand proof of debt and demand they do not contact you. If they continue, take valid legal action.
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davidu将近 9 年前
There is no scenario where you should feel compelled to pay their legal fees. Perhaps they will think again before starting to run up a legal tab on a term sheet in the future.<p>That said, if this is a &lt;$5k amount of legal bill… I might just offer to split it to leave cordially.
sverige将近 9 年前
Now <i>they&#x27;re</i> bluffing for real. Good thing you didn&#x27;t sign anything. Sounds like they would have been a gigantic PITA all the way through if you had signed with them.
centizen将近 9 年前
Investor A has no grounds to force you to pay their lawyers unless you signed an agreement stating otherwise.
yAak将近 9 年前
Talk to your legal counsel first, before doing anything. Especially before making a blog post about it.
metaphorm将近 9 年前
this medium post was ill advised in my opinion. this kind of stuff causes reputational damage to everyone involved (regardless of who is in the right and who is being a greedy asshole).<p>real professionalism involves establishing that you are mature enough to handle yourself in difficult situations and know how to get GOOD ADVICE from qualified advisors, not randoms on the internet.<p>talk to a lawyer and talk your board of investors. take down this blog post if you know what&#x27;s good for you.
godzillabrennus将近 9 年前
Please share the name of this investor.
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deedubaya将近 9 年前
I&#x27;m sure future investors will be comforted by your open ended internet inquiry on legal matters &#x2F;s.
zekevermillion将近 9 年前
Would love to know who the investor and their law firm are. Unfortunately I don&#x27;t think it&#x27;s wise to base the decision on feedback from HN. Should ask your own lawyer b&#x2F;c there may be facts that are not in your medium article. In general if there&#x27;s nothing signed with the other party that explicitly says you agree to pay legal fees, at least in NY, you do not owe legal fees due to broken deal talks as a matter of law.
whbk将近 9 年前
I&#x27;m sure it&#x27;s a bit more complicated than this and we&#x27;d need to see all correspondence, etc. to give an informed opinion, but generally speaking based on that fact pattern: Tell them to fuck off. Or better yet, don&#x27;t tell them anything until they act on it - and then have your lawyer tell them to fuck off.
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mindcrime将近 9 年前
Seems unlikely that you&#x27;re under any real legal obligation to pay. But as others have said, it might be worthwhile to pay, or pay partially, just to avoid burning bridges and leave on cordial terms. It would depend on the amount they expect and other factors, of course.
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_kst_将近 9 年前
I have almost exactly zero expertise in this area. I have a gut reaction to your question, but there&#x27;s no point in my sharing it.<p>But if I were an expert, I suspect that I still wouldn&#x27;t offer an opinion after hearing only one side of the story.
mathattack将近 9 年前
One of the stories from Chaos Monkeys [0] is how the author was no the receiving end of a potential company-ending lawsuit. He talked to PG, who ultimately was the one to play hardball with the other firm. Angels and VCs are better at this than founders.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.harpercollins.com&#x2F;9780062458193&#x2F;chaos-monkeys" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.harpercollins.com&#x2F;9780062458193&#x2F;chaos-monkeys</a>
CPLX将近 9 年前
It says &quot;I got a phone call&quot; at the end as the entire punch line. It&#x27;s not even a written or emailed request, it can just be ignored.
cmurf将近 9 年前
TIINAL (the internet is not a lawyer). Get legal advice from a lawyer. Inform investor B, get a referral from investor B for a lawyer.<p>My gut instinct is no, nothing was signed, there is no contract, but there may be an intent that assigns some share of cost for the failed partnership, but I doubt it. But IANAL so that is not legal advice.
bhouston将近 9 年前
You do not have any legal reason to have to pay this but share it with current VCs so they are aware of the issue.
segmondy将近 9 年前
They figured since you got some funding, you might be foolish enough to pay to make them go away. Please talk to your VC, get legal advice and if possible do name those idiots so folks who know to steer clear from them. Ask that VC, if they pay the legal fees for all the companies they decline.
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lancewiggs将近 9 年前
A version of this happened to us - we played the role of Investor B and I became a director of the company.<p>It was a very easy no.<p>Our fund does not charge any fees to companies - no legal fees nor director fees. This way we align with the company on trying to minimise transaction and on-going costs for all parties.
uptown将近 9 年前
&quot;Should we pay or not?&quot;<p>Sure. You&#x27;ve asked the internet for our guidance, so I say go ahead.
juandazapata将近 9 年前
No legal ground to pay them. Just ignore the noise and focus in your product.
owlscouncil将近 9 年前
Lawyer up, do NOT post to your blog, do NOT post to HackerNews.