Dispute over stake in Colliers’ predecessor settled for $4M

Updated, 5:40 p.m., May 20: A five-year legal battle involving top executives from commercial firm Colliers International has been settled for $4 million, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Candace Carmel Barasch, the daughter of one of the principals at Williams Real Estate, sued Colliers’ principals including Andrew Roos, Michael Cohen and Robert Freedman in 2009, claiming that she didn’t get her fair share of proceeds stemming from the sale of Williams to FirstService Corp. Williams was rebranded as Colliers International after the $27 million sale.

Barasch, who inherited her stake in the firm from her father, voted against the sale to FirstService but it was approved anyway. She sued claiming she had a 10 percent stake in the firm and it was worth at least $4 million, according to court papers seen by the Journal.

Instead, Barasch was offered about $1 million with the possibility of more payments depending on performance, sources told the Journal.

“Honestly, the whole thing is very sad,” Barasch told the Journal last week. “This is not something that one would have ever wanted to happen.”

A spokesman for Cohen and Roos told the Journal that “the sale of any business with multiple shareholders frequently causes disputes to arise.” The matter “was further compounded,” the spokesman added, by Cohen’s absence from the firm on account of his wife’s terminal illness. [WSJ]  – Hiten Samtani