Mergers & Acquisitions

  • October 11, 2024

    IBM Unit Wants To Undo 'Troubling' Defamation Case Ruling

    An IBM unit has asked the Fourth Circuit to revive its lawsuit alleging a former executive's defamatory statements nearly killed a major acquisition, arguing that a lower court attempted to inject a new standard into its analysis. .

  • October 11, 2024

    New Squarespace Suit Filed For Take-Private Docs

    A second shareholder of website builder Squarespace Inc. has sued in the Delaware Court of Chancery for books and records on the company's proposed $7.2 billion take-private deal with private equity giant Permira Advisors LLC, less than two weeks after the sidelining of an earlier books suit focusing on the same deal, which is set to expire late Oct. 11.

  • October 11, 2024

    M&A Dispute Triggers Could Shift Moving Into 2025

    Legal disputes are a fact of life when it comes to mergers and acquisitions, but the deal provisions seen as the most likely to spur conflict have shifted since the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have subsided, according to attorneys surveyed in a new report from Berkeley Research Group. 

  • October 11, 2024

    Fintech-Focused Cohen SPAC Leads 2 IPOs Worth $250M

    Cohen Circle Acquisition Corp. I, a special purpose acquisition company founded by financial services industry veteran Betsy Cohen, began trading Friday, one of two SPACs that completed initial public offerings for a combined $250 million.

  • October 11, 2024

    FTC's Republicans Take Aim At Agency Merger Data

    The Federal Trade Commission's two Republican members criticized a long-standing agency policy of reporting "abandoned" transactions that were never notified to the antitrust agencies as wins, while dissenting from an annual congressional report on merger reviews.

  • October 11, 2024

    Cable Co. CEO Says Buyer Fired Him In Violation Of Deal

    An owner of a Colorado aerospace manufacturing company is suing a buyer in state court for allegedly violating the terms of their asset purchase deal, claiming the buyer fabricated a reason to fire him as CEO in order to avoid paying half a million dollars that it would otherwise owe to his company.

  • October 11, 2024

    Sports Biz Seeks To Freeze Assets In Suit Over NHL Deal

    A Finland-based sports agency has asked a federal judge to enjoin a Massachusetts man from transferring or disposing of any assets while a lawsuit proceeds over a scheme he allegedly carried out to avoid paying roughly $1 million awarded to the company through arbitration.

  • October 11, 2024

    Cannabis Biz Ex-Partners Spar Over $6.4M Judgment Payout

    Two former business partners are sparring in Colorado federal court over a proposed order to hold assets related to a cannabis company to satisfy a $6.4 million judgment and whether that order can be granted in compliance with the federal Controlled Substances Act.

  • October 11, 2024

    BurgerFi Creditors Blast DIP, Bidding Procedures In Ch. 11

    Unsecured creditors of restaurant chain BurgerFi Inc. are challenging the terms of its post-bankruptcy financing package and some of the details of its planned asset sale, saying the provisions will unfairly leave creditors with little to nothing in recoveries.

  • October 11, 2024

    Kirkland, Skadden Compete Atop M&A Adviser League Tables

    The two firms at opposite ends of the bargaining table on the largest merger announced this year — Mars' $36 billion agreement to purchase Kellanova — are also running neck-and-neck in the mergers and acquisitions league tables when measured by dollar volume, according to data provided by Dealogic. 

  • October 11, 2024

    2 Finance Partners Added To Hunton's London Office

    Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP has welcomed two new lawyers, Alan Cunningham and Richard Skipper, as finance partners in its London office.

  • October 11, 2024

    Taxation With Representation: Davis Polk, Latham, Kirkland

    In this week's Taxation With Representation, Rio Tinto agrees to acquire Arcadium Lithium for roughly $6.7 billion, Ares Management Corp. and GCP International reach a $3.7 billion deal, and Butterfly Equity announces plans to buy The Duckhorn Portfolio for $2 billion.

  • October 11, 2024

    Nippon To Sell JV Stake For $1 In Push To Close US Steel Deal

    Japan's Nippon Steel said Friday it has agreed to sell its stake in a 50-50 joint venture with ArcelorMittal to the European steelmaker for just $1, as Nippon seeks to address any antitrust concerns over its planned $14.9 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel.

  • October 10, 2024

    FTC's Final Merger Filings Overhaul Drops Labor Market Look

    The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday finalized its long-awaited overhaul to U.S. merger filing rules, dropping initial proposed requirements to submit preliminary deal drafts and labor market details, while also reinstating the "early termination" of reviews of benign tie-ups.

  • October 10, 2024

    Chancery OKs $9.5M Deal For Katapult SPAC Challenge

    A $9.5 million deal settled a Delaware Court of Chancery stockholder suit Thursday seeking damages arising from a stock slump following the $883 million blank check company deal that took subprime consumer lender Katapult Holdings Inc. public in June 2021.

  • October 10, 2024

    Yale Hospital Says Pension Liens Breach $435M Sale Deal

    A hospital operator's purported $4 million pension liability has saddled its properties with liens that breach a $435 million sale contract, Yale New Haven Health told a Connecticut state judge Wednesday in a letter suggesting it may add claims to litigation over its deal with Prospect Medical Holdings Inc.

  • October 10, 2024

    Chancery OKs $125M Deal, Fees In Discovery Merger Suit

    Declaring it "a great settlement," a Delaware vice chancellor approved on Thursday a near chart-topping, $125 million deal to end stockholder challenges to Discovery Inc.'s $43 billion merger with AT&T in 2022, an amount eclipsed only by a $148.2 million pretrial deal in a 2016 case.

  • October 10, 2024

    Longtime Minnesota Twins Owners Put Team Up For Sale

    The Pohlad family on Thursday announced plans to explore a sale of the Minnesota Twins, ending a 40-year reign of ownership, and has brought on Hogan Lovells as legal counsel, a source familiar with the matter told Law360.

  • October 10, 2024

    Sen. Warren, Novo At Odds On Merits Of $16.5B Deal

    Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Thursday raised the alarm on Novo Holdings' planned $16.5 billion purchase of Catalent, arguing the transaction could give Novo "unprecedented" control over the production of certain obesity drugs by Eli Lilly and other top competitors, but Novo insists the deal would give it no such edge.

  • October 10, 2024

    Pfizer Threatened To Sue Former Execs, Starboard Says

    Activist investment firm Starboard Value has set its sights on pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, issuing a letter Thursday that alleges Pfizer has threatened to sue former executives that Starboard is working with and expresses "concerns about the trajectory of the business."

  • October 10, 2024

    Sports Tech Sees Threefold Increase In M&A Deal Values

    The sports tech sector saw a more than threefold increase in merger and acquisition deal values in the first half of this year compared with the second half of 2023, with more than $27 billion in transactions led by Silver Lake's $13 billion take-private acquisition of Endeavor Group, according to a report released by global tech investment bank Drake Star on Thursday.

  • October 10, 2024

    Hyundai Plans IPO For Indian Biz, Plus More Rumors

    Hyundai's Indian unit is eyeing a massive $3.3 billion initial public offering, rumors are swirling regarding ownership stakes of major European soccer clubs, and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund may buy a $1 billion minority stake in sports-streaming giant DAZN. Here, Law360 breaks down these and other notable rumors from the past week.

  • October 10, 2024

    Kirkland-Led Brookfield's £557M Tritax Bid Beats Rival Offer

    Asset manager Brookfield said Thursday that Tritax EuroBox has accepted its £557 million ($728 million) bid, beating out an all-stock offer worth approximately £552 million from property investor Segro that the logistics property investor accepted in September.

  • October 09, 2024

    Colo. Accuses Albertsons Of Competitor Flip-Flop For Merger

    Colorado enforcers accused Albertsons of "saying whatever they think will get their merger," confronting the supermarket chain's CEO on Wednesday with past comments to federal regulators they said showed that Albertsons flipped who it considers a competitor ahead of a proposed merger with Kroger.

  • October 09, 2024

    Court Affirms Waste Management Win In 'Titans Of Trash' Spat

    A Florida appeals court on Wednesday affirmed a win for Waste Management Inc. of Florida Inc. in a dispute with Bergeron Environmental and Recycling LLC over a joint venture to provide municipal trash pickup services and said the agreement's jury trial waiver was valid.

Expert Analysis

  • HSR Amendments Intensify Merger Filing Burdens, Data Risk

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    The antitrust agencies' long-awaited changes to premerger notification rules under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act stand to significantly increase the time and cost involved in preparing an initial HSR notification, and will require more proactive attention to data issues, says Andrew Szwez at FTI Technology.

  • What's Inside Feds' Latest Bank Merger Review Proposals

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    Recent bank merger proposals from a trio of federal agencies highlight the need for banks looking to grow through acquisition to consider several key issues much earlier in the planning process than has historically been necessary, say attorneys at Simpson Thacher.

  • State Of The States' AI Legal Ethics Landscape

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    Over the past year, several state bar associations, as well as the American Bar Association, have released guidance on the ethical use of artificial intelligence in legal practice, all of which share overarching themes and some nuanced differences, say Eric Pacifici and Kevin Henderson at SMB Law Group.

  • How Biden Admin Has Used Antitrust Tools, And What's Next

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    The last four years have been marked by an aggressive whole-of-government approach to antitrust enforcement using a broad range of tools, and may result in lasting change regardless of the upcoming presidential election result, say attorneys at Norton Rose.

  • How BIS' Rule Seeks To Encourage More Voluntary Disclosure

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    Updated incentives, penalties and enforcement resources in the Bureau of Industry and Security's recently published final rule revising the Export Administration Regulations should help companies decide how to implement export control compliance programs and whether to disclose possible violations, say attorneys at Freshfields.

  • 8 Childhood Lessons That Can Help You Be A Better Attorney

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    A new school year is underway, marking a fitting time for attorneys to reflect on some fundamental life lessons from early childhood that offer a framework for problems that no legal textbook can solve, say Chris Gismondi and Chris Campbell at DLA Piper.

  • Harris Unlikely To Shelve Biden Admin's Food Antitrust Stance

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    A look at Vice President Kamala Harris' past record, including her actions as California attorney general, shows why practitioners should prepare for continued aggressive antitrust enforcement, particularly in the food and grocery industries, if Harris wins the presidential election, says Steve Vieux at Bartko.

  • Opinion

    This Election, We Need To Talk About Court Process

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    In recent decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has markedly transformed judicial processes — from summary judgment standards to notice pleadings — which has, in turn, affected individuals’ substantive rights, and we need to consider how the upcoming presidential election may continue this pattern, says Reuben Guttman at Guttman Buschner.

  • Series

    Playing Diplomacy Makes Us Better Lawyers

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    Similar to the practice of law, the rules of Diplomacy — a strategic board game set in pre-World War I Europe — are neither concise nor without ambiguity, and weekly gameplay with our colleagues has revealed the game's practical applications to our work as attorneys, say Jason Osborn and Ben Bevilacqua at Winston & Strawn.

  • Mental Health First Aid: A Brief Primer For Attorneys

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    Amid a growing body of research finding that attorneys face higher rates of mental illness than the general population, firms should consider setting up mental health first aid training programs to help lawyers assess mental health challenges in their colleagues and intervene with compassion, say psychologists Shawn Healy and Tracey Meyers.

  • John Deere Penalty Shows Importance Of M&A Due Diligence

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    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's recent $10 million penalty against John Deere underscores the risks of not conducting robust preacquisition due diligence and not effectively integrating a new subsidiary into the existing compliance framework, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

  • 8 Issues AI Firms May Encounter As M&A Action Accelerates

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    As the AI merger climate heats up, potential complications may arise, including antitrust scrutiny, talent retention agreements, and aggressive and protective deal terms intended to compensate for lofty valuations, say Scott Schwartz and Kishan Barot at Manatt.

  • Series

    Collecting Art Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    The therapeutic aspects of appreciating and collecting art improve my legal practice by enhancing my observation skills, empathy, creativity and cultural awareness, says attorney Michael McCready.

  • Del. Dispatch: Cautionary Tales Of 2 Earnout Effort Breaches

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    The Delaware Court of Chancery's tendency to interpret earnout provisions precisely as written, highlighted in two September rulings that found buyers breached their shareholder obligations when they failed to make reasonable efforts to hit certain product development milestones, demonstrates the paramount importance of precisely wording these agreements, say attorneys at Fried Frank.

  • Building US-Japan Relationships In The M&A Market

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    The prospect of U.S.-Japanese mergers and acquisitions presents stronger competition to U.S. investors in the global M&A markets, while also opening up an additional exit route for sellers looking to offload strategic assets, says Nick Wall at A&O Shearman.

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