For trainees and junior lawyers · English law

Shareholders' Agreements

A logistics group, a family cold-storage firm and an engineer go into business together and write down who decides what. You act for the family firm.

How co-owners run one company together, taught through one shareholders’ agreement, clause by clause.

A cold store's loading bay drawn straight on. On the left a shut dock door with a pallet truck parked in front of it, an empty pallet on its forks. High on the wall an evaporator with two fans, a fin coil and a drip tray, its drain pipe running down the wall to a floor gully. On a wooden rail with three hooks hang a large and a medium insulated jacket; the third hook is empty. The small jacket hangs alone on a hook screwed to the wall higher up. On the right a strip-curtain door, two strips pushed apart and the racking of the cold room glimpsed through the opening. The medium jacket is outlined in copper.

You will be able to:

  • Read a shareholders’ agreement and say what each clause does
  • Explain what the majority and minority owners each want, and why
  • Follow the owners from signing to a dispute and a sale

10 chapters with tests · a final exam · a certificate · about 4 hours in all · published 13 September 2026

Start Chapter 1

Chapters

Module 1

The Company and Its Owners

Module 2

Running It Together

Module 3

Getting Out

Module 4

The Document’s Hygiene

One case runs through every chapter: a logistics group, a family cold-storage business and an engineer own one company together. Read the full agreement →

Glossary: every term in plain English · Final exam: 30 questions, open book