It&#x27;s great you have a signed vesting schedule - I think everybody here is confused by the problem. Nobody has any insight into what alleged deception you are being accused of, and you didn&#x27;t share (and that&#x27;s completely fine).<p>It sounds like the &quot;don&#x27;t have that kind of time&quot; is specifically because of &quot;We&#x27;re in talks with (really) big pockets&quot;, but again, we have no insight into what those talks might look like.<p>Disclosure: IANAL, just an asshole.<p>Is this an acquisition? If so, be really sure they actually want to acquire you, then maybe it&#x27;s worth just giving the guy his shares to get your deal done (or attempting to negotiation - always negotiate)<p>Is this an investment? Again, how sure are you they really want to invest, and how long can you live without it? You should talk to your current team and potential investor about possibly fixing the cap table and how you could achieve that (ie cram down the value of the shares and top up current employees)<p>When I&#x27;m in the right (fuck it, even when I&#x27;m not), with a preponderance of evidence, I usually tend to not take kindly to people coming after me - at least for a bit, you have little to lose to start the process of going to court - you can always settle between now and then. This is like any other negotiation, his first salvo is give me everything, you&#x27;re turn to respond in kind with &quot;go fuck yourself because X,Y and Z, and by the way, we will have to counter file as you are causing irreparable harm to our company because of A, B and C&quot;.<p>You can always borrow money over time - ie 10K to start, and see how it goes, maybe you settle and you have to find a way to pay it back, maybe 10K is enough to get the guy to back off.