When positions harden: navigating competing narratives in commercial disputes

Commercial disputes begin with a disagreement.

A difference of opinion over value. A dispute about strategy. Conflicting views on ownership, governance or the future direction of a business.

Yet many disputes do not become difficult because the facts are unclear. They become difficult because the parties involved stop seeing those facts in the same way.

Over time, positions can become entrenched. What begins as a disagreement evolves into competing interpretations of the same events. The same financial information, the same decisions and the same history are viewed through entirely different lenses. Each side develops its own narrative to explain how the dispute arose and why their position is justified.

This is particularly common in shareholder disputes. Businesses are rarely built by strangers. They are built by founders, families, friends and long-standing colleagues. Commercial relationships often develop alongside personal ones, making it increasingly difficult to separate business decisions from the human dynamics that surround them. When disputes emerge, those dynamics frequently become as important as the financial issues themselves. 

The challenge is that once competing narratives become established, they start to shape how new information is interpreted. A strategic decision can be viewed as sensible leadership by one shareholder and self-interest by another. A change in remuneration can be considered commercially justified by one party and evidence of unfair treatment by another. The facts themselves may not have changed, but the story attached to them has. 

In many cases, this is where positions begin to harden.

A common assumption is that more information will resolve this problem. In practice, additional information does not always lead to greater clarity. Sometimes it simply provides more material through which existing positions can be reinforced.

This is particularly true where there is an imbalance in access to information. One party may have detailed insight into the day-to-day operation of the business, while another has a more limited view. As a result, discussions can quickly move beyond what the information shows and become focused on whether it can be trusted. Questions about transparency, intent and credibility begin to overshadow the underlying financial analysis.

This is where independent financial analysis plays an important role.

Its purpose is not to determine which side has the most convincing narrative. Nor is it to validate a particular perspective. Rather, it provides a framework for assessing the available evidence through a lens that sits outside the dispute itself.

In shareholder disputes, this often means stepping away from the personal significance of a business and considering it from the perspective of an independent third party. The question is no longer what the business means to those involved, but what it would be worth to somebody approaching it without the benefit of that history, emotion or personal attachment.

That distinction can be difficult to accept. Business owners naturally view their organisations through the lens of their own experiences. They remember the risks they took, the challenges they overcame and the years spent creating value. These experiences shape how they perceive the business and, inevitably, how they assess its worth. However, they are not necessarily the factors that determine value in the market.

Perhaps that is why commercial disputes are so rarely resolved by technical analysis alone. Financial evidence can establish value, identify inconsistencies and challenge assumptions, but it cannot remove the personal perspectives that influence how people view a dispute.

What it can do is create a common point of reference. A position supported by evidence rather than personal experience. A framework that allows competing narratives to be tested rather than simply asserted.

Ultimately, the most challenging commercial disputes are not those where the facts are unavailable. They are the disputes where the parties have become so committed to their own interpretation of those facts that meaningful progress becomes difficult.

In these situations, the objective is not to eliminate disagreement. It is to create enough distance from entrenched positions to allow commercial reality to re-enter the conversation.

Because when positions harden, the greatest challenge is often not finding the evidence.

It is finding a way to see beyond the narrative that has formed around it.