Event Recording: The Tech M&A Bounceback
Axios + Cooley hosted a virtual event on new deal-making in tech M&A. We discussed the future of the market and how innovative teams are getting things done. Axios Technology & Business Reporter Kia Kokalitcheva and Business Editor Dan Primack hosted conversations with: Stewart Butterfield – Co-founder & CEO, Slack […]
SPAC Trend Gives Rise to Securities Enforcement and Litigation Risks
What is a SPAC Special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) are on the rise. A SPAC is a publicly traded shell company with no underlying operating business that seeks to merge with a target operating company. According to Nasdaq, in 2015, SPACs made up approximately 12% of the IPO market, but by […]
Podcast: For Women to Climb in M&A, Male Allyship is ‘Essential’
In an installment of Law.com’s “Legal Speak” podcast, Jamie Leigh, partner and co-chair of Cooley’s mergers and acquisitions practice group, discusses the various levels of support needed to help build more diverse and equitable M&A teams in Big Law, including male allyship, as well as the importance of strategic thinking […]
HSR Headwinds: FTC Hits ‘Pause Button’ on HSR Early Terminations
Parties to transactions requiring filings under the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act are already facing considerable headwinds from US President Joe Biden’s antitrust enforcement agencies on important substantive and procedural issues that will delay transactions closing and potentially increase compliance costs and burdens. The HSR Act requires parties to transactions that meet certain financial thresholds to notify the […]
Hart-Scott-Rodino Act Thresholds Decrease for 2021
Baseline HSR threshold now $92 million The Hart-Scott-Rodino Act requires that parties to certain transactions, including mergers and acquisitions, acquisitions of voting securities, and assets and minority investments, file notifications with the Department of Justice Antitrust Division and the Federal Trade Commission and observe a statutory waiting period if the transaction […]
Cooley’s 2020 Tech M&A Year in Review
A Tale of Two Years While we continue to absorb and understand the worldwide pandemic shockwaves of 2020, trying to encapsulate the vicissitudes of the past year in an annual recap is daunting. Early weeks of the pandemic created an almost inconceivable shift in dealmaking – lawyers and advisors conditioned […]
Cooley’s 2020 Life Sciences M&A Year in Review
General Trends in Life Sciences M&A If 2019 was the year of life sciences mega-deals, 2020 was the year of COVID-19, as the global pandemic permeated every aspect of the dealmaking landscape, with the life sciences sector being no exception. COVID-19 drove unprecedented levels of collaboration among biopharmaceutical companies seeking […]
Delaware Puts the Conduct of Business Covenant on Center Stage in COVID-Related M&A Dispute
In the months following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a slew of parties filed lawsuits in US courts relating to M&A transactions that were signed prior to March 2020 and that buyers were seeking to terminate as a result of the pandemic. In these lawsuits, buyers commonly alleged one […]
Americas Antitrust Review 2021
Covid-19 has made 2020 into a year like no other with ‘stay at home’ orders and working from home the new normal. Nonetheless, the tech and pharma industries continued to attract immense antitrust scrutiny, with daily reports in the media and pressure from politicians to address what some perceive to […]
IRS Releases Guidance on PPP Loans and Employee Retention Tax Credits
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued several items of new guidance relating to loans under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), including two new FAQs addressing the interaction of PPP loans and employee retention tax credits (ERTCs) in M&A transactions, a Revenue Ruling holding that expenses funded by PPP loans […]