Mergers & Acquisitions

  • July 12, 2024

    Retired MSU Law Profs' Fraud Claims Get Tossed

    Two ex-law professors can't sue their former employer for allegedly not honoring a benefits agreement because the law school ceased to exist when it merged with Michigan State University, a Michigan Court of Appeals panel ruled Thursday.

  • July 12, 2024

    Healthcare SPAC Launches $200M IPO To Pursue Acquisition

    Launch One Acquisition Corp. began trading Friday after raising a $200 million initial public offering, represented by Ellenoff Grossman & Schole LLP and underwriters counsel King & Spalding LLP, joining an uptick in special-purpose acquisition companies targeting the healthcare sector.

  • July 12, 2024

    FTC Says Abandoned Novant Deal Moots Lower Court Loss

    The Federal Trade Commission is looking to unravel a North Carolina federal judge's order allowing Novant's planned $320 million hospital merger to advance after it subsequently abandoned the deal, telling the Fourth Circuit the appeal is moot and the order should be vacated.

  • July 12, 2024

    Steptoe & Johnson Lands M&A Pro From Rimon Law

    Steptoe & Johnson PLLC has hired an experienced mergers and acquisitions and securities lawyer who previously worked for numerous firms, including Rimon Law, Winstead PC, Baker Botts LLP and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP.

  • July 12, 2024

    Taxation With Representation: Ropes & Gray, Cravath, Latham

    In this Week's Taxation with Representation, Paramount Global merges with Skydance Media, Devon Energy acquires Grayson Mill Energy's Williston Basin oil and gas business, Ryan acquires Altus Group Ltd.'s property tax business, and Bain Capital buys Envestnet Inc.

  • July 12, 2024

    FTC Eyes $23B ConocoPhillips Deal Amid Mass Consolidation

    ConocoPhillips said Friday that the Federal Trade Commission has issued a second request regarding its late May agreement to acquire Marathon Oil for $22.5 billion, the latest sign that the rapid consolidation rippling through the oil and gas industry features prominently on the regulator's radar.

  • July 12, 2024

    VW Supplier's Antitrust Suit Belongs In Germany, Not Texas

    A Texas federal judge has dismissed an antitrust lawsuit filed by an auto parts maker against Volkswagen after finding that the German judicial system rather than the U.S. district courts would be the best place for these claims to be litigated.

  • July 12, 2024

    Biggest Illinois Decisions Of 2024: A Midyear Report

    State and federal courts have handed down rulings so far this year that limited the reach of a federal bribery law commonly used to prosecute Illinois corruption, laid out a framework to challenge so-called mootness fees and clarified the scope of Illinois defamation and antitrust law. Here's a look at some of the biggest Illinois decisions in the first half of 2024.

  • July 12, 2024

    MoFo-Guided SoftBank Buys UK Chipmaker Graphcore

    SoftBank Group Corp. has acquired Graphcore, a British semiconductor chipmaker, as it eyes expansion into the artificial intelligence sector, the two companies said on Friday.

  • July 11, 2024

    Tempur Sealy, Mattress Firm Blast FTC's Merger Challenge

    Tempur Sealy and Mattress Firm fired back at the Federal Trade Commission's bid to block a proposed merger between the mattress companies, contending in separate filings that the FTC's ambiguous allegations require tossing the agency's administrative complaint.

  • July 11, 2024

    Kroger Asks To Delay At Least Part Of FTC Challenge

    Kroger and Albertsons are asking an administrative law judge from the Federal Trade Commission to pause the evidentiary portion of the agency's in-house case against the supermarket giants' merger, saying the companies are facing too many overlapping cases in different venues to adequately prepare and present their case.

  • July 11, 2024

    Only 1 Gold Mine Investor Has Class Claim, Chancery Says

    Only one of three warrant holders who sued a Nevada gold and silver mine in Delaware's Court of Chancery may move forward with a proposed class action, a Chancery Court judge has ruled, but the other pro se plaintiffs may continue with their individual claims.

  • July 11, 2024

    South Korea Looks To Nix $32M Award To U.S. Hedge Fund

    South Korea said Thursday that it will look to overturn an arbitral award ordering it to pay some $32 million to a U.S. hedge fund following a dispute over a government bribery scandal that allegedly underpinned the $8 billion merger of two Samsung affiliates in 2015.

  • July 11, 2024

    Signify, Merger Partner Clash In Chancery Over $50M Earnout

    An attorney for former Caravan Health Inc. stockholder representatives told a Delaware vice chancellor on Thursday that acquirer Signify Health Inc. sabotaged Caravan's business in order to scuttle an obligation to add as much as $50 million in performance-based "earnouts" to the $250 million merger price.

  • July 11, 2024

    $435M Yale Hospital Merger Case Set For December Jury Trial

    A lawsuit claiming that Yale New Haven Health Corp. is trying to back out of a $435 million deal to buy three Connecticut hospitals will go to a bench trial in December after a state court judge approved the parties' proposed schedule.

  • July 11, 2024

    Platinum Equity Taking Heroux-Devtek Private In $990M Deal

    Platinum Equity Advisors has agreed to purchase Heroux-Devtek in a take-private deal that values the Quebec-based manufacturer of aerospace products at CA$1.35 billion ($990.1 million), Heroux-Devtek said in a statement Thursday.

  • July 11, 2024

    SPAC Plans To Merge With Online Game Maker In $500M Deal

    Special-purpose acquisition company Relativity Acquisition Corp. on Thursday revealed that it is in talks with online casino game maker Mazaii Corp. Ltd. to acquire the company and take it public in a deal that values the casino game maker at an initial enterprise value of $500 million.

  • July 11, 2024

    Deals Rumor Mill: Saudi Aramco, Paramount Global, Carlyle

    The Carlyle Group is considering acquiring Baxter International's kidney-care spinoff Vantive for about $4 billion, Aramco attracted more than $31 billion in orders for its $6 billion bond sale, and Paramount Global plans to cut more jobs before its merger with Skydance Media closes. Here, Law360 breaks down these and other notable deal rumors from the past week.

  • July 11, 2024

    Earned Wealth Secures $200M, Buys Peer Thomas Doll

    DLA Piper-advised Earned Wealth announced on Thursday that it received a $200 million growth investment from growth equity investors while simultaneously unveiling its acquisition of fellow medical professional-focused financial services firm Thomas Doll.

  • July 11, 2024

    Ropes & Gray, Paul Weiss Steer Bain's $4.5B Envestnet Buy

    Ropes & Gray-led Bain Capital will buy Envestnet Inc., guided by Paul Weiss, in a take-private deal that values the financial technology company at $4.5 billion, Envestnet said in a statement Thursday. 

  • July 11, 2024

    White & Case Guides Turkish Biz's $310M Port Co. Buyout

    U.K. cruise port operator Global Ports Holding PLC said on Thursday that it has agreed to be bought out by a subsidiary of its majority shareholder Global Yatirim Holding AS, a Turkish conglomerate, for $310 million.

  • July 10, 2024

    Nasdaq Says It's Immune To SPAC's 'Racial Animus' Claims

    The Nasdaq Stock Market has asked a Brooklyn federal judge to toss claims it "arbitrarily and capriciously" derailed a minority-led special purpose acquisition company's plans, arguing in a Wednesday filing that it's immune to such claims as a self-regulatory organization.

  • July 10, 2024

    AdaptHealth Investor Attys Get 25% Of $51M Deal, With Caveat

    A Pennsylvania federal judge on Wednesday granted final approval to a $51 million settlement between AdaptHealth and investors over allegations tied to its merger with a blank check company, but the plaintiffs' counsel must wait for certain shares to be sold before they can collect their $12.8 million fee.

  • July 10, 2024

    Ellenoff-Led SPAC Raises $200M To Pursue Healthcare Merger

    SIM Acquisition Corp. I, a special-purpose acquisition company formed to pursue a healthcare merger, began trading Wednesday after pricing a $200 million initial public offering, represented by Ellenoff Grossman & Schole LLP and underwriters counsel Kirkland & Ellis LLP.

  • July 10, 2024

    Thoma Bravo's Qualtrics Bid Fell Short, SAP Tells Chancery

    Thoma Bravo LP may have offered $1.2 billion more than Silver Lake Management to buy Qualtrics International Inc. from software company SAP SE in 2023, but other aspects of the bid were less attractive than Silver Lake's $12.5 billion offer, an attorney for SAP directors told Delaware's Court of Chancery on Wednesday.

Expert Analysis

  • A Look At Acquisition Trends For Radiopharmaceuticals

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    As radiopharmaceutical drugs are increasingly used for the diagnosis and treatment of certain diseases, interest from Big Pharma entities is following suit, despite some questions around the drugs' capacity to expand beyond their limited niche, says Adrian Toutoungi at Taylor Wessing.

  • Opinion

    States Should Loosen Law Firm Ownership Restrictions

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    Despite growing buzz, normalized nonlawyer ownership of law firms is a distant prospect, so the legal community should focus first on liberalizing state restrictions on attorney and firm purchases of practices, which would bolster succession planning and improve access to justice, says Michael Di Gennaro at The Law Practice Exchange.

  • Series

    Solving Puzzles Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Tackling daily puzzles — like Wordle, KenKen and Connections — has bolstered my intellectual property litigation practice by helping me to exercise different mental skills, acknowledge minor but important details, and build and reinforce good habits, says Roy Wepner at Kaplan Breyer.

  • What UK Digital Markets Act Will Mean For Competition Law

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    The new Digital Markets Act’s reforms will strengthen the Competition and Markets Authority's investigatory and enforcement powers across its full remit of merger control and antitrust investigations, representing a seismic shift in the U.K. competition and consumer law landscape, say lawyers at Travers Smith.

  • Texas Ethics Opinion Flags Hazards Of Unauthorized Practice

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    The Texas Professional Ethics Committee's recently issued proposed opinion finding that in-house counsel providing legal services to the company's clients constitutes the unauthorized practice of law is a valuable clarification given that a UPL violation — a misdemeanor in most states — carries high stakes, say Hilary Gerzhoy and Julienne Pasichow at HWG.

  • In Memoriam: The Modern Administrative State

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    On June 28, the modern administrative state, where courts deferred to agency interpretations of ambiguous statutes, died when the U.S. Supreme Court overruled its previous decision in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council — but it is survived by many cases decided under the Chevron framework, say Joseph Schaeffer and Jessica Deyoe at Babst Calland.

  • First-Of-Its-Kind Chancery Ruling Will Aid SPAC Defendants

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    The Delaware Chancery Court's first full dismissal of claims challenging a special purpose acquisition company transaction under the entire fairness doctrine in the recent Hennessy Capital Acquisition Stockholder Litigation establishes useful precedent to abate the flood of SPAC litigation, say Lisa Bugni and Benjamin Lee at King & Spalding.

  • How To Clean Up Your Generative AI-Produced Legal Drafts

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    As law firms increasingly rely on generative artificial intelligence tools to produce legal text, attorneys should be on guard for the overuse of cohesive devices in initial drafts, and consider a few editing pointers to clean up AI’s repetitive and choppy outputs, says Ivy Grey at WordRake.

  • Series

    Boxing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Boxing has influenced my legal work by enabling me to confidently hone the skills I've learned from the sport, like the ability to remain calm under pressure, evaluate an opponent's weaknesses and recognize when to seize an important opportunity, says Kirsten Soto at Clyde & Co.

  • Anticipating Disputes In Small Biz Partnerships And LLCs

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    In light of persistently high failures of small business partnerships and limited liability companies, mediator Frank Burke discusses proactive strategies for protecting and defining business rights and responsibilities, as well as reactive measures for owners.

  • Opinion

    Industry Self-Regulation Will Shine Post-Chevron

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    The U.S. Supreme Court's Loper decision will shape the contours of industry self-regulation in the years to come, providing opportunities for this often-misunderstood practice, says Eric Reicin at BBB National Programs.

  • 3 Ways Agencies Will Keep Making Law After Chevron

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    The U.S. Supreme Court clearly thinks it has done something big in overturning the Chevron precedent that had given deference to agencies' statutory interpretations, but regulated parties have to consider how agencies retain significant power to shape the law and its meaning, say attorneys at K&L Gates.

  • Opinion

    Atty Well-Being Efforts Ignore Root Causes Of The Problem

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    The legal industry is engaged in a critical conversation about lawyers' mental health, but current attorney well-being programs primarily focus on helping lawyers cope with the stress of excessive workloads, instead of examining whether this work culture is even fundamentally compatible with lawyer well-being, says Jonathan Baum at Avenir Guild.

  • How Generative AI May Aid Merger Clearance Process

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    Generative artificial intelligence capable of analyzing and searching large datasets stands to revolutionize the merger clearance process, including by significantly reducing the time and effort required to respond to Hart-Scott-Rodino second requests, say Kenneth Koch and Brian Blush at BDO USA.

  • Antitrust In Retail: The Meaning Of 'Accessible Luxury'

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    In order for the Federal Trade Commission to block a deal that would put six "accessible luxury" brands, including Coach and Michael Kors, under one roof, the agency will need to prove that this category is distinct from the true luxury or mass-market categories, says David Kully at Holland & Knight.

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