Exploring ESG in the Food, Beverage and Agribusiness Sectors
Food Venture Financing Trends - Campbell Soup announced that it plans to acquire Sovos Brands for $2.7 billion. The deal is Campbell's largest acquisition since 2018. Livekindly Collective, a New York-based plant-based...more
Food Venture Financing Trends - Aplós, a functional non-alcohol spirits emerging brand, announced that it raised $5.5 million in its Series A round. The company plans to use funds to expand distribution of its products in...more
In this episode of "Don't Miss a Beet," host Jonathan Havens, co-chair of Saul Ewing’s Food, Beverage and Agribusiness (FBA) Practice, speaks with Stewart Lindsay, Vice President of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability...more
It is said that Andy Warhol painted the famous Campbell’s Soup Cans after an art gallery proprietor told him to paint “something you see every day and something that everybody would recognize.” While Mr. Warhol’s Campbell’s...more
CAMPBELL SOUP COMPANY V. GAMON PLUS, INC. Before Moore, Prost, and Stoll. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Summary: The standards for establishing a presumption of nexus or a nexus-in-fact between...more
Campbell Soup petitioned for inter partes review (IPR) of Gamon’s design patents D612,646 and D621,645. The Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted the IPR and determined that Campbell Soup did not establish...more
State v. Campbell is a case that is proving as hard to finish off as Freddy Kreuger or Wile E. Coyote. Campbell has earned its third blog entry following yet another opinion by the Supreme Court of North Carolina. And, like...more
In what it described as an “unusual situation” involving design patents, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) factual determination, finding that the PTAB erroneously...more
PATENT CASE OF THE WEEK - SIPCO, LLC v. Emerson Electric Co., Appeal No. 2018-1635 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 25, 2019) - In this appeal of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) final written decision regarding covered...more
CAMPBELL SOUP COMPANY v. GAMON PLUS, INC. Before Prost, Newman and Moore. Appeal from the Patent Trial and Appeal Board. Summary: A proper primary reference can have slight differences in design if, in light of overall...more
Oatly, Inc. has chosen to discontinue its “no added sugars” advertising claims after the Campbell Soup Company brought a challenge before the National Advertising Division (NAD). Campbell argued that various claims found on...more
Disney has officially added a + and unveiled its new streaming service (that would be Disney Plus), a subscription video program “dedicated to movies and shows from Disney, Pixar, the ‘Star Wars’ franchise, National...more
Wells Fargo CEO Timothy Sloan is out after a rocky two-plus-year tenure in arguably the hottest seats in finance over the past several years. He’ll be replaced on an interim basis by Wells’ GC C. Allen Parker....more
General Motors delivered the harsh news on Monday that it plans to idle five North American factories and cut more than 14,000 jobs in an effort to save costs....more
Amidst all of that Black Friday and general holiday craziness, the White House released a blockbuster report issued by a collection of 13 federal agencies on Friday warning that, if left unchecked, global climate change could...more
We seem to be in whipsaw territory, as a tech selloff on Monday spread into a “broad retreat” that led to the Dow tumbling 600 points....more
US stocks dove again on Monday after early gains, thanks, in part, to concerns that the White House is planning yet another round of tariffs on “all remaining imports from China” if the US and China make no progress in trade...more
After much deliberation, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin announced that he, too, will withdraw from the Future Investment Initiative conference in Saudi Arabia next week. His announcement follows over a week of intrigue...more
Blink, and it’s Jobs Report Friday again. Where does the time go? Here’s what we’re watching for in the numbers....more
Incoming Goldman CEO David Solomon has chosen his top deputies, settling on investment banking vets John Waldron (49) and Stephen Scherr (54) as his president/COO and CFO, respectively, and signaling the firm’s shift away...more
A mix of corporate tax cuts and a strong economy helped propel US corporate profits to a 16.1% year-over-year gain, the best figure in 6 years...more
Late last week, a California jury found Monsanto liable in the first of a series of cases accusing the Roundup weedkiller maker of causing plaintiff Dewayne Johnson’s non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, awarding him an incredible $289...more
LEGISLATION, REGULATIONS & STANDARDS - California Bans New Soda Taxes - California Governor Jerry Brown has signed the Keep Groceries Affordable Act, a statute preventing local agencies in the state from imposing taxes...more
Campbell’s Soup CEO Denise Morrison retired abruptly late last Friday. Though the company’s stock has struggled in the past year, Morrison gave no reason for stepping down—a move that drops the number of female chief...more
European authorities have opened an investigation into Inter Ikea, one of the Swiss retail giant’s two primary divisions based in the Netherlands, over “concerns that it may have been given unfair tax advantages”....more