Articles and updates affecting M&A transactions
Category: Insight
Keeping Up With M&A Case Law – Spotlight on Recent Delaware Decisions
The mergers & acquisitions market may wax and wane, but one thing in M&A is consistent from year to year: The Delaware courts issue opinions that impact M&A dealmaking. And this year is certainly no exception – Delaware courts continue to have plenty to say about M&A. While certainly not […]
FTC Proposes Sweeping Changes to HSR Rules That Could Substantially Increase Burden, Time to Prepare Filings
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a proposal for a radical overhaul to the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) premerger notification program that, if adopted, would dramatically increase costs, burden and the time required to prepare filings for transactions that must be notified to the government. Under the HSR Act, parties to transactions are required […]
Assessing Overlapping Boards After DOJ Crackdown
Over the past year, the U.S. Department of Justice has garnered headlines by issuing press releases announcing that directors have stepped down from 10 company boards, in response to DOJ concerns that their roles violated the Clayton Act’s Section 8 prohibitions on interlocking directorates.In October 2022, the DOJ announced the resignation of directors from […]
Europe’s Top Court on Merger Review: No Deals Are ‘Off the Table’
The European Union’s top court recently confirmed that an M&A transaction that does not require mandatory pre-merger authorization may be investigated post-merger on suspicion that the transaction involved an ‘abuse’ of the acquirer’s ‘dominant position’. Per the ruling in the Towercast case, pre-merger authorization under the EU Merger Regulation (or […]
Life Sciences Reverse Mergers Go Global: Is it the Path for Your Company?
With the US initial public offering markets continuing to remain largely closed, and special purpose acquisition company combinations being costly and complex, there’s a new kid in town for foreign companies looking to go public in the US: reverse mergers. We’ve seen a material increase in reverse merger transactions – […]
Corp Fin posts update to tender offer CDIs
Corp Fin has posted an update to the CDIs related to the tender offer rules and schedules and our Public Companies blog summarizes key takeaways. To learn more please see the recent post on Cooley PubCo
Cross-Border M&A: 10 Key Trends From Across the Pond
It will come as no surprise that cross-border M&A is impacted by the world we live in, with geopolitical tensions, rising inflation and interest rates, currency fluctuations, and increased regulatory scrutiny all playing their part in making deals more challenging to execute. That said, cross-border M&A remained largely resilient in […]
New Hart-Scott-Rodino Act Thresholds and Filing Fees Announced
The Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act thresholds, which govern when acquisitions must be reported to the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission, will increase slightly more than 10% in February 2023. The minimum “size-of-transaction” threshold will increase from $101 million to $111.4 million. The increases, which are based on changes in […]
Cooley’s 2022 Tech M&A Year in Review
Tech M&A in 2022 was a tale of two halves. The year started off with a bang, with mega-deals such as Microsoft’s pending $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter and Broadcom’s pending $61 billion acquisition of VMware inked in quick succession. However, deal […]
Cooley’s 2022 Life Sciences M&A Year in Review
Although 2022 saw a general decline in M&A activity in the life sciences industry compared to 2021’s frenetic pace (when deal volume was up 52% from 2020), life sciences deal flow in 2022 on balance remained strong despite the headwinds. Creativity was the year’s primary theme as biotechnology companies increasingly […]