John L. Griffin founded a small business in 1943 which helped restaurants and processors dispose of their food waste. Over the years, the company expanded and became a leader in the industry as corporate control passed from one generation to the next. Then, in 2010, the company was sold for almost $900 million and the wealth was set to be spread among all the children of the company’s founder but something was amiss. The daughters of the founder realized that their brothers controlled much more of the company stock than they did and were set to take home a much smaller slice of the proceeds as a result. Predictable enough, the sisters went to court and a federal judge, after a prolonged and bitter court battle, awarded three of the four sisters $178 million each while a fourth sister settled for just under $12 million. The basis of the ruling was that the brothers, who ran the company, had been selling themselves company stock and assets at less than market value for years which breached their fiduciary duties. Lawyers for the brothers expressed shock at the verdict and stated that an appeal is forthcoming.
See Andrew Wolfson, Sisters get $547 million in estate fight, Courier-Journal, March 22, 2016.
Special thanks to Melissa Prewitt for bringing this article to my attention.
