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Mergers & Acquisitions
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September 30, 2024
Colo. Says Kroger Merger Would Divest To 'Retail Liquidator'
Colorado enforcers told a state judge Monday that Kroger Co.'s plan to inoculate against the anticompetitive effects of its $25 billion merger with Albertsons is doomed to fail because the company that would acquire hundreds of stores is a "liquidator" with no intention of running the stores long term.
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September 30, 2024
Pa. Bankruptcy Court OKs $53M Sale Of Nursing Homes
A federal bankruptcy judge approved the proposed sale of nine western Pennsylvania nursing homes to affiliates of Kadima Healthcare Group for $53 million Monday, as part of Chapter 11 proceedings for more than a dozen facilities operating under the umbrella of Comprehensive Healthcare Management Systems.
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September 30, 2024
Bristol-Myers Beats Celgene Investors' Drug Delay Suit
A New York federal judge on Monday tossed UMB Bank's claims that Bristol-Myers Squibb improperly delayed U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval of a cancer treatment to avoid paying shareholders $6.4 billion owed from a 2019 acquisition of Celgene Corp., saying the bank lacked standing to sue.
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September 30, 2024
Private Trading Platform Scraps SPAC Merger In Favor Of IPO
Special-purpose acquisition company Blockchain Coinvestors Acquisition Corp. I said Monday that its merger agreement with private investment platform Linqto Inc. has been terminated, while Linqto separately announced it will go public through an initial public offering instead.
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September 30, 2024
Alaska-Hawaiian Merger, An Aviation Anomaly
A promise to keep their distinct brands and a smaller national market share with few overlapping routes helped Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines seal their merger, a rare feat amid the Biden administration's tough antitrust enforcement and zealous opposition to consolidation, experts say.
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September 30, 2024
FCC Approves Audacy's Soros Deal, Triggering GOP Anger
The Federal Communications Commission has given the green light to the purchase of an ownership interest in bankrupt radio station owner Audacy Inc. by a fund manager with ties to George Soros.
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September 30, 2024
Chancery Sidelines Squarespace Merger Doc Suit For Now
A Delaware Court of Chancery action to compel stockholder access to website builder Squarespace Inc.'s corporate records remained under a stay Monday, after a court finding that the suit aimed to preserve future review rights focused on a proposed $7.2 billion company take-private deal.
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September 30, 2024
Activist Investor Urges Basic-Fit Gym Operator To Sell
Buckley Capital Management LLC made an appeal to the board of Basic-Fit NV on Monday recommending that the company undergo a strategic review with the intention of selling the business and going private.
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September 30, 2024
FTC Withdraws From Feds' Merger Review Labor Pact
The Federal Trade Commission is withdrawing from an agreement signed in August with the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Department of Labor and the National Labor Relations Board that's meant to increase collaboration when looking at labor issues in mergers.
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September 30, 2024
SEC Fines LA Man In Truth Social-Linked Insider Trading Case
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced that Los Angeles-based entrepreneur Eric Hannelius will pay over $365,000 to settle allegations that he traded on inside information ahead of a blank check company's acquisition of the owner of social media platform Truth Social.
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September 30, 2024
AGs, Academics Back Media Giants In Sports Streaming Fight
ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. have picked up allies in their push to move ahead with a "sports-first" broadcasting service, with six state attorneys general and a host of respected economics professors urging the Second Circuit to undo a New York court order that blocked the service's launch.
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September 30, 2024
4 Firms Guide Verizon's $3.3B Wireless Comms Towers Sale
Verizon has sold 6,339 wireless communications towers to a communications-focused real estate investment trust for $3.3 billion in a deal guided by Jones Day, Greenberg Traurig, Simpson Thacher and Mayer Brown, Verizon announced Monday.
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September 30, 2024
Schwab Nears Deal In Antitrust Suit Over TD Ameritrade Buy
Charles Schwab Corp. has reached "an agreement in principle" with retail investors who filed a proposed class action alleging increased transaction costs for trades and other antitrust injury following the Schwab-TD Ameritrade merger, the parties told a Texas federal judge Friday.
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September 30, 2024
Popwallet Shareholders Sue Buyer Snap Inc. After Stock-Drop
Stockholders of virtual payment wallet startup Popwallet Inc. have sued tech company Snap Inc. for fraud and equitable fraud in Delaware's Court of Chancery, accusing Snap of withholding deeply negative news about its own business until after closing on a mostly paid-in-stock merger in late 2021.
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September 30, 2024
Marsh McLennan Paying $7.75B For McGriff Insurance
New York-based global professional services group Marsh McLennan said Monday it has agreed to buy insurance brokerage McGriff Insurance Services, an affiliate of TIH Insurance Holdings, for $7.75 billion in a deal that included guidance from Troutman Pepper, Wachtell Lipton and Simpson Thacher.
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September 30, 2024
Chevron-Hess 2nd Oil Merger To Get FTC OK With CEO Ban
A divided Federal Trade Commission signed off Monday on a deal allowing Chevron to buy Hess, permitting the $53 billion megamerger on the condition that Hess CEO John B. Hess be banned from Chevron's board, in the second such CEO-banning deal the FTC has inked in the last year.
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September 30, 2024
5 Firms Guide DirecTV, Dish On $10B Debt Exchange Merger
DirecTV said Monday it has agreed to purchase EchoStar's video distribution business Dish DBS, including Dish TV and Sling TV, for a nominal $1 while absorbing nearly $10 billion worth of its debt, in a rare debt exchange-driven megadeal that is being led by at least five law firms.
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September 30, 2024
REA Pulls £6.2B Rightmove Bid After Board's Rejection
Rupert Murdoch's REA Group withdrew its £6.2 billion ($8.3 billion) potential bid for Rightmove PLC on Monday, hours before a deadline for making a firm offer, after the board of the British property business continued to reject its advances.
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September 27, 2024
Twitter Investors Win Cert. In Suit Over Musk's Backpedaling
A California federal judge on Friday certified a class of thousands of Twitter investors over claims Elon Musk fraudulently tweeted about the social media company's alleged bot problem to get out of his $44 billion acquisition, rebuffing the billionaire businessman's contention that individual issues in the suit eclipse common questions.
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September 27, 2024
Ex-CEO To Pay SEC Fine For Pre-SPAC Disclosure Failures
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced Friday it has reached a settlement with the former CEO of an electric vehicle battery company who allegedly concealed its supply chain issues ahead of its merger with a blank check company, leading to a nearly 20% drop in the company's share price once the shortage was revealed.
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September 27, 2024
Musk Skirts Sanctions In Missed Twitter Deposition, For Now
A California federal judge on Friday declined to sanction Elon Musk, for now, after he skipped a deposition over his $44 billion Twitter takeover, allowing the parties to resolve the issue and advising them to wait to see if he appears for the deposition that's been rescheduled for this coming Friday.
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September 27, 2024
Early Trump Media Backer Dumps Shares As Lockup Expires
An early investor in former President Donald Trump's social media platform has unloaded most of its stake, marking the first divestiture following the expiration of a lockup period that restricted sales after Trump's entity went public earlier this year.
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September 27, 2024
50-Year-Old Lobs Age Bias Suit At Sporting Products Co
A 50-year-old Amer Sports recreational gear salesman alleges the Chinese investors who purchased the company passed him up for leadership roles despite his decades of experience and excellent performance, and then fired him when he complained about age discrimination.
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September 27, 2024
Alvarez & Marsal Tax Appoints Former Weil Official
Alvarez & Marsal's tax affiliate announced it has appointed a former Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP executive as a senior official for the firm's compensation and benefits practice.
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September 27, 2024
NY Court Won't Transfer DOJ's Live Nation Antitrust Case
The New York federal judge overseeing the government's antitrust case against Live Nation said Friday he will not transfer the action to Washington, D.C., where a court handled a settlement clearing the concert promotion giant's 2010 purchase of Ticketmaster.
Expert Analysis
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Equity Rights Offering Considerations As Maturity Cliff Looms
Current market uncertainties make an equity rights offering — involving affiliate backstop investors — a cost-effective, capital-raising transaction for distressed companies looking to manage their leverage ahead of the impending maturity of a substantial number of COVID-era debt issuances, say attorneys at Winston & Strawn.
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A Midyear Forecast: Tailwinds Expected For Atty Hourly Rates
Hourly rates for partners, associates and support staff continued to rise in the first half of this year, and this growth shows no signs of slowing for the rest of 2024 and into next year, driven in part by the return of mergers and acquisitions and the widespread adoption of artificial intelligence, says Chuck Chandler at Valeo Partners.
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Mitigating Risks Amid 10-Year Sanctions Enforcement Window
In response to recent legislation, which doubles the statute of limitations for actions related to certain U.S. sanctions and provides regulators greater opportunity to investigate possible violations, companies should take specific steps to account for the increased civil and criminal enforcement risk, say attorneys at Freshfields.
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A Look At Acquisition Trends For Radiopharmaceuticals
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.
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Opinion
States Should Loosen Law Firm Ownership Restrictions
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.
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Series
Solving Puzzles Makes Me A Better Lawyer
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.
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What UK Digital Markets Act Will Mean For Competition Law
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.
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Texas Ethics Opinion Flags Hazards Of Unauthorized Practice
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.
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In Memoriam: The Modern Administrative State
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.
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First-Of-Its-Kind Chancery Ruling Will Aid SPAC Defendants
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.
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How To Clean Up Your Generative AI-Produced Legal Drafts
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.
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Series
Boxing Makes Me A Better Lawyer
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.
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Anticipating Disputes In Small Biz Partnerships And LLCs
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.
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Opinion
Industry Self-Regulation Will Shine Post-Chevron
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.
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3 Ways Agencies Will Keep Making Law After Chevron
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.