HRS §414-177
Who pays legal costs after a shareholder lawsuit ends
When a shareholder lawsuit against a company ends, the court can decide who pays legal fees. The company may pay the shareholder's costs if the lawsuit helped the company. Or the shareholder may pay the company's costs if the lawsuit was baseless or brought for a bad reason. The court can also make a party pay the other side's costs for filing a paper that was not legally sound and was meant to harass or delay.
courts
The statute, as written — Payment of expenses
On termination of the derivative proceeding the court may: (1) Order the corporation to pay the plaintiff's reasonable expenses (including counsel fees) incurred in the proceeding if it finds that the proceeding has resulted in a substantial benefit to the corporation; (2) Order the plaintiff to pay any defendant's reasonable expenses (including counsel fees) incurred in defending the proceeding if it finds that the proceeding was commenced or maintained without reasonable cause or for an improper purpose; or (3) Order a party to pay an opposing party's reasonable expenses (including counsel fees) incurred because of the filing of a pleading, motion, or other paper, if it finds that the pleading, motion, or other paper was not well-grounded in fact, after reasonable inquiry, or warranted by existing law or a good faith argument for the extension, modification, or reversal of existing law and was interposed for an improper purpose, such as to harass or cause unnecessary delay or needless increase in the cost of litigation.
LawTrove is not legal advice. The summary above is a computer-generated restatement — the authoritative text is the official version linked above.