It was related to international distribution. I had negotiated royalties for international sales, but had neglected to cover the sale of the rights to sell internationally. So the company just sold the rights, of which I didn't get a piece, and the companies that bought the rights had no obligation to pay me anything.
This sounds like they sold something they never owned - i.e. "the right to sell without paying you royalty". Reminds me of the recent case where Disney tried to argue that in an acquisition, they bought only the rights, but not the obligations (royalty payments) that went with them [1]. Basically, writers were promised X% in royalty payments, but Disney argued they didn't buy that part of the contract, only the part where they now owned the works.
This is not something that should require, in any remotely sane legal system, an explicit contractual clause to prevent.
The larger context is that what they bought was my entire business, along with all rights to the intellectual property. What I got was a sale price and defined ongoing royalties for the product I formed the company to create.
They did sell something they owned. I neglected to attach a method by which I'd get compensated for them selling that particular thing.
In the mindset of cutthroat business, they legitimately won. They 100% adhered to the terms of the sale, and it's not their fault that I left a loophole they could leverage.
My attorney did say that if I wanted to, a case could be made for a lawsuit -- but it would have been expensive and wouldn't have had high odds of success. I just wanted to move on.
This whole event was my first real business success, and the mistakes I made were legion. It taught me quite a lot -- including that I won't do business with anyone that I am nervous about doing business with. Contracts can only protect you so much.
Also, I feel the need to repeat... I did pretty well from this deal. I was angry when this happened, but with the passage of time, I see that even with this event, I came out of the deal better than I went into it. So I hesitate to even call it a "regret". It's more of a "learning experience".
Please share.