Tag: Trends

Drinks With The Deal: Cooley’s Ian Nussbaum Talks Case Law

“Ian Nussbaum was a case law junkie from the start of law school, a habit that continues to shape his practice as an M&A lawyer, he said on the latest Drinks With The Deal podcast. Nussbaum, a partner at Cooley LLP in New York, reads deeply in the work produced […]

Antitrust Trends to Look Out for in 2022

One year into his administration, President Joe Biden has made clear that aggressive competition policy is on the agenda. With a team of progressives filling leadership roles at the Federal Trade Commission and in the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice, companies are able to predict what the […]

Cooley’s 2021 Tech M&A Year in Review

General trends in tech M&A Hello, (virtual) world once again! Despite everyone’s efforts in 2021, including the rollout of vaccines and varying rounds of lockdowns and work-from-home mandates, a true “return to normal” for M&A dealmakers was foiled anew by COVID-19 and its variants. Undeterred by the pandemic, high target […]

Cooley’s 2021 Life Sciences M&A Year in Review

General trends in life sciences M&A Although the COVID-19 pandemic that defined 2020 continued to shape much of the life sciences industry in 2021, the way that it did was markedly different. While 2020’s M&A landscape was characterized by whiplash volatility from choppy deal activity in the first half of […]

Pleading Bad Faith Against Special Committee Members: A New Trend?

Special committees, by design, are created to address conflicts and to insulate the board of directors from liability for the very conflicts that may invite judicial scrutiny of the fairness of the board’s decision. A well-functioning special committee will also mitigate the risk of personal liability for a company’s fiduciaries, […]

Proposed Federal Tax Legislation Would Reduce QSBS Benefit and Raise Capital Gain Rates

Last week, the House Ways and Means Committee announced its consideration of federal tax legislative proposals that include reducing the exclusion from income of gain on the sale of qualified small business stock (QSBS) and increasing the tax rate on long-term capital gains, in each case for noncorporate upper-income taxpayers.

Cooley Stands Apart in Women and M&A Deal Leadership

A recently published article by UC Davis School Law Professor Afra Afsharipour, “Women and M&A,” shows that of the 20 firms handling the most significant public M&A transactions from 2014 to 2020, Cooley is the only firm with equal gender representation in leading roles across such deals. “The outlier position […]

Keeping Up with Delaware Appraisal Jurisprudence Since Aruba: Deal Price Reigns Supreme, But Will Recent Decision Lead to More Arbitrage?

In a string of seminal decisions from 2017 through 2019 (DFC Global, Dell and Aruba), the Delaware Supreme Court re-shaped appraisal jurisprudence, in each case by overturning the Court of Chancery for failing to give adequate weight to deal price as the most reliable indicator of fair value. In the […]

2021 M&A Editorial Advisory Board

Caitlin Gibson has been named to Law360’s 2021 M&A Editorial Advisory Board, which provides feedback on Law360’s coverage and expert insight on how best to shape future coverage. Read the Law360 article here (Subscription required) Contributors Caitlin Gibson

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 […]