The Delaware Court of Chancery (the Court) has raised eyebrows with a recent decision, in the case of Kodiak Building Partners, LLC v. Adams, to strike down a noncompetition covenant binding upon a seller in a sale...more
Cornerstone Research reports that during the first six months of 2022, plaintiffs filed 110 securities class actions, a pace that is generally in line — 2.8% higher — with what we saw in the second half of 2021. Looking...more
On October 6, 2022, in Kodiak Building Partners, LLC v. Philip D. Adams, C.A. No. 2022-0311-MTZ (Oct. 6, 2022), the Delaware Court of Chancery found that a restrictive covenant entered into in connection with an asset...more
The Boiling Points collection features real-world documents that government antitrust agencies used against merging companies. Dechert’s antitrust/competition practice curated the collection from an exhaustive review of...more
Last week the Federal Trade Commission announced a privacy and data security enforcement action against the online retail platform CafePress. The allegations in the FTC’s complaint read like a list of worst practices,...more
Despite the rules around exclusivity provisions in Australia having been relatively settled for many years (the Panel initially published its Guidance Note 7 on 'Lock-up devices' back in 2001), it's been surprising to see two...more
The American Bar Association (ABA) 2020 – 2021 Private Target Mergers & Acquisitions Deal Points Study[1] analyzed publicly available acquisition agreements for 123 transactions executed and/or completed in 2020 and the first...more
On November 2, 2021, the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to block the planned $2.175 billion merger between powerhouse publishing companies...more
What Is the FTC's New "Prior Approval" Policy? At the end of an FTC investigation into the competitive impact of a merger, the agency may (i) take no action (allowing the parties to close), (ii) challenge the transaction...more
The recently filed complaint in Franchi v. Multiplan Corp., et al. is one to watch because it alleges breach of fiduciary duties by the directors and controlling shareholders of Churchill Capital Corp. III (Company), a...more
On January 29, 2021, Vice Chancellor Laster of the Delaware Court of Chancery refused to dismiss a shareholder class action stemming from the 2019, $2.2 billion sale of Presidio, Inc., an IT solutions provider specializing in...more
In Morris v. Spectra Energy Partners (DE) GP, LP,1 the Delaware Supreme Court clarified the test for determining when former equityholders have standing to pursue post-merger direct claims for a controller’s alleged failure...more
On November 30, 2020, Vice Chancellor Laster of Delaware’s Court of Chancery issued the first case where the pandemic provided a company with the ability to walk away from its contractual obligations in a sale transaction,...more
On 25 November 2020 the French Supreme Court (Cour de cassation) overturned its decade-long case law, ruling that corporations may now be held criminally liable for offenses committed by acquired entities prior to the merger....more
It was a whirlwind affair. The Manhattan socialite and the sophisticated Parisian. Tiffany & Co. (NYSE: “TIF”) and LVMH, Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE (OTC: “LVMUY”), announced their engagement, via joint press release, on...more
Can management of a Delaware corporation block members of the board of directors from gaining access to the company’s privileged information? The Delaware Court of Chancery recently addressed this question in the ongoing...more
Even as they make their investment, private equity investors are focused on their exit. A standard feature of an exit strategy is the set of drag-along rights embedded in a stockholder or similar agreement executed among...more
Morrison v. Berry considers Plaintiff’s claims for damages following the purchase of a grocery-store chain, The Fresh Market, Inc. (“Fresh Market” or the “Company”) by Apollo investment entities. The Plaintiff was a former...more
In a unanimous Opinion and Final Order issued on November 1, 2019, the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) upheld an administrative law judge’s determination that the acquisition by one leading US supplier of lower-limb...more
On 6 August 2019, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (the “CMA”) imposed an ‘Unwinding Order’ on a U.S. company, Bottomline Technologies (de), Inc (“Bottomline”), active in the business payment automation technology...more
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced yesterday that Canon Inc. and Toshiba Corporation agreed to pay a $2.5 million fine each to settle charges that the two companies violated the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act by failing to...more
In Varela v. AE Liquidation, Inc. (In re AE Liquidation, Inc.), 866 F.3d 515 (3d Cir. 2017), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit became the sixth circuit court of appeals to rule that a "probability standard"...more
Pre-closing violations in United States v. Flakeboard & SierraPine provide a reminder of practical rules for handling pre-closing activities without hitting antitrust landmines....more
A recent National Labor Relations Board decision could significantly increase the damages that employees can recover against an employer that acquires a business but refuses to hire the employees of the predecessor. The...more