Scott McIntosh

Comprehensive franchise dispute and regulatory counsel

Scott McIntosh is a franchise law attorney who possesses significant experience dealing with the most complex cases among the business, litigation and regulatory issues that confront:

• Franchising companies of all sizes and growth-stages, and across all industries, including hospitality, financial services, restaurants and food service, fitness and other product and service categories
• Automotive manufacturers

He routinely resolves disputes between franchisors and franchisees, but particularly when issues rise to the level of class actions, multiparty disputes and matters spanning litigation and binding arbitration at the same time, Scott is an invaluable resource. He manages all the logistics, maintains consistency across the actions pertaining to the matter and retains control of costs while pursuing the best possible outcomes for his clients.

Scott deeply values long-term, comprehensive relationships with his clients. He participates in their day-to-day and year-to-year operations, understanding and adding to the texture of their businesses and enhancing the decision-making processes that underlie informed judgments.

• Represents and advises franchise clients who are confronting complex business, litigation or regulatory issues. Through his national franchise dispute resolution practice, Scott has handled matters in state and federal courts throughout the country, as well as before the AAA and other arbitration venues.
• Counsels clients on myriad legal, business and regulatory issues that franchising companies confront, including franchise relations, terminations and non-renewals, transfers, changes and updates to systems, transitioning to new forms of franchise agreements, enforcement of system standards and preparation of transactional documents.
• Handles complex litigation matters such as class actions, collective actions, multiparty disputes, derivative actions and disputes involving related litigation and arbitration proceedings. Scott has litigated business tort claims, antitrust claims and claims for alleged violation of various federal and state statutes.
• Represents FINRA industry members in FINRA arbitrations and court proceedings addressing noncompetes, theft of trade secrets, U5 disclosures and expungement matters.
• Counsels automotive industry clients on large-scale dealer network initiatives. He advises on dealer improvement programs, incentive programs and standards and policy implementation.
• Effectively serves as outside general counsel for growing franchise systems that do not have an in-house legal department.

• Obtained dismissal of a putative class action brought by franchisees asserting claims for breach of contract and fraud.
• Defeated antitrust claims for alleged monopolization or attempted monopolization of the private club software market.
• Enforced a post-term noncompetition provision from the date of the injunction, rather than the date of termination of the franchise agreement containing the provision.
• Defeated a motion for preliminary injunction that sought to preclude the termination of a U.S. distributor of a medical device.
• Obtained an injunction to preclude a franchisee’s efforts to unilaterally terminate its franchise agreement.
• Recovered an award of royalties for the remaining term of the franchise agreement, as well as attorneys’ fees and interest, when a franchisee abandoned its business.