Hey Reddit, My brother has found himself in a complicated partnership where his partner refuses to communicate about their project. They have a shotty unsigned draft partnership agreement but have verbally agreed to the agreement and have a 40/60% profit split that we can back up with written evidence.

They have spent the last year or so developing a video game, and it is nearing release. We have spoken with an attorney and confirmed that we can sue for any damages if the game is released without my brother's consent.

In our case review, our lawyer suggested it would be extremely time-consuming, expensive, and difficult to sue for any IP related to the project. So that is pretty much off the table. The partner has mentioned my brother will still get "a" cut but is in violation of the partnership agreement by refusing to communicate and by releasing the project without my brother's communication. It's getting messy.

We have a few options, and that was what I wanted Reddit's opinion on.

1. We hire a New York attorney to review the contract and send a formal cease and desist to the partner requiring mediation before anything related to the project continues. (expensive but possible option)

2. We request Mediation on our own by sending a formal request via certified mail. Our demands are to rewrite the contract with a lawyer to best represent everyone going forward. (cheap, but not sure if the partner would do this)

3. We do nothing, wait for the partner to launch the game on his own, and sue for damages if he does not give the promised 40% profits.

4. Continue to work on the game without communicating and push updates(The partner is still pushing updates in the game collaboration file, but refusing to talk in any other capacity) then when the launch happens hope is he good for paying out my brother's portion. If not proceed with a lawsuit

5. Keep sending messages until he responds or works together, without any threats of litigation.

Since we are not at a point yet that it makes sense to start any litigation, has anyone been in a similar situation with unrealized IP? What did you do that worked? How do we communicate with a partner who refuses to talk about the project with my brother? We would like to avoid litigation if possible but have the financial means to proceed if necessary.

The game has a very real possibility to do quite well in the VR marketplace and is on technological par with games such as Beatsaber or Superhot. They are both very experienced software developers and have built quite a few proprietary systems in order for the game to function, such as inhouse networking, anti-lag systems, custom loco-motion controllers, etc... Any advice on how you guys would proceed under these circumstances may be potentially really helpful for us going forward. As we do want this game to launch and for each party to move on.