This is a tough situation to be in and you have my empathy.<p>1) If you have properly set up a vesting schedule in the operating agreement his claims would be pretty baseless and assuming there&#x27;s no other basis for his claims I&#x27;d venture to say you wouldn&#x27;t need 150k to fight this in court.<p>2) Even if it turns out to be costly to fight in court, consider this: What would this person&#x27;s equity be worth if you offered it in a fund raise? From your description it sounds like the fight over equity is a pretty recent event so it&#x27;s unlikely you&#x27;d be forced to bend over immediately. Would it be an option to raise capital for the company and use part of the proceeds to go to court?<p>3) If all other options fail I&#x27;d approach the ousted co-founder together and say he can have his shares but then everyone would walk away from the company due to misaligned incentives and he&#x27;d be left with nothing. If you go this route you&#x27;d have to make this 100% clear and there can&#x27;t be a single doubt about that you&#x27;re going to do this.<p>4) Talk to a lawyer if you haven&#x27;t done so already.<p>Hope my answers provide a little help in this matter.<p>Edit: added point 4)