In a dreaded scenario for any brewery owner who has multiple shareholders, a minority shareholder who owns just 2% of Tree House Brewing Company has sued two of its founders in Superior Court, alleging a misuse of company funds.
The lawsuit claims that the two founding owners, Nathan Lanier and Damien Goudreau, has caused the shareholder and the brewery financial damage.
Eric Granger, who filed the lawsuit, claims that Lanier and Goudreau refused to issue dividends to shareholders, delayed or withheld tax documents, paid themselves excessive salaries and bonuses and developed a real estate scheme to divert money from Three House to a separate LLC privately owned by Lanier and Goudreau.
Tree House Brewing is located in Charlton, Massachusetts and was founded in 2011. It was originally located in Brimfield, Massachusetts, until the company built the current multimillion dollar site in 2017. All of the beer is sold on-premise.
More details here.