M & A

Paul Weiss Discusses Vertical Mergers and Investor Exit Strategies

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Vertical mergers – those involving companies at different levels of the supply chain – are the subjects of increasing regulatory scrutiny by antitrust enforcement agencies. For much of the recent past, these acquisitions have largely been viewed as pro-competitive for various reasons and have rarely been subject to regulatory challenges in the United States (some non-US competition agencies have been more aggressive toward vertical mergers than US enforcers). Indeed, the US agencies’ current Vertical Merger Guidelines, adopted in mid-2020, recognize that “vertical mergers often benefit consumers” and state that vertically integrated firms may “be able to create innovative products … Read more

Sidley Discusses SPAC Litigation in Delaware Courts

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As commented on previously (here, here, and here), 2020 and the beginning of 2021 have seen an explosion in popularity of Special Purpose Acquisition Company (“SPAC”) deals.  As readers know, SPACs have become one of the predominant vehicles for raising funds outside of the traditional IPO.  Historically, SPACs have been the target of litigation relatively infrequently, but that trend is changing with the recent SPAC boom and the corresponding increase in public awareness and interest (including from regulators, short sellers, and the securities plaintiffs’ bar).  Along with the increase in federal securities suits filed against pre- … Read more

Skadden Discusses New EU Merger Regulation Guidance

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The new Article 22 EU Merger Regulation (EUMR) Guidance[1] released by the European Commission (EC) enables the EC to review any acquisition, even those that do not qualify for notification under national (or EU) merger control rules.

Summary

  • The new guidance indicates that the EC will actively monitor deal activity to identify transactions that may be candidates for an Article 22 referral. While a formal referral request should be made by a national competition authority (NCA), the EC will “encourage and accept” referrals and may proactively “invite” NCAs to make referrals, even if national merger control thresholds are not met.

… Read more

The Darwinian Dynamics of Contracting

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First-year law students typically learn that the terms of a contract represent a snapshot of the parties’ mutual intent, captured at the “magic moment” of contract formation. In reality, however, contractual sausage making is far messier than this idealized account admits. Even sophisticated negotiators can (and do) fall prey to inattention, bad planning, poor information, slothful mimicry, bad negotiating or decision-making skills, and more. And when they do, the contract terms they adopt may diverge from shared intent – sometimes substantially. In short, contracts are often the products of their environments, including political constraints, economic exigencies, and the inherent limitations … Read more

Covid and Cultural Due Diligence in M&A          

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There’s reason to believe that M&A will rebound in 2021, according to Ernst & Young research.[1] Nevertheless, the multifarious challenges created by the Covid-19 pandemic have significantly altered the climate for acquisitions.[2] Even in normal times, getting a deal to close does not guarantee long-term success of any business combination. According to a 2019 study by Deloitte, business executives increasingly cite successful post-merger integration “as the single most important factor that leads to a successful transaction (23 percent this year, up from 21 percent last year).”[3] Despite that acknowledged need to focus early on firm integration, many … Read more

Why M&A Rumors Cause a Dip in Firm Productivity

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Rumors are common in financial markets and often relate to mergers and acquisitions (M&A). While the majority of M&A rumors originate from speculation or opinion pieces (Jia et al., 2020) and never turn into deal announcements, academic research finds that they are associated with significant stock price reactions (e.g., Ahern and Sosyura, 2015; Betton, Davis, and Walker, 2018). Since M&A rumors are disruptive events that are associated with job loss and organizational change, it is worth examining their heretofore unknown operational consequences for the firms and people involved. In this study, we use thousends of M&A rumors between 1999 and … Read more

The Lowdown on SPACs

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In 2020, the number of IPOs by a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) set records: A total of 248 SPAC IPOs raised over $75 billion. The boom continues in 2021: Each of January and February has seen over 90 SPAC IPOs, an unprecedented pace.

In a new working paper, we examine the structure of SPACs and discuss the economic tensions surrounding them.

What Is a SPAC?

A SPAC, a blank-check company created by a sponsor, goes public to raise capital and then find a non-listed operating company to merge with, in the process taking the company public. Units, usually priced … Read more

Stealth Acquisitions and Product Market Competition

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In a recent study, we examine whether firms structure their mergers and acquisitions (M&A) to avoid scrutiny from antitrust regulators as well as whether such deals reduce product market competition.

While M&A deals are often triggered to create value, they are scrutinized for antitrust violations in all of the world’s major economies. We find robust evidence of bunching in M&A transaction values just below the threshold required for submitting premerger notification filings for assessment of antitrust concerns by U.S. agencies. These “stealth acquisitions” entail contractual terms with lower deal premiums that facilitate avoidance of antitrust review, payoff functions that allow … Read more

Skadden Discusses FTC Moratorium on Early Terminations of HSR Waiting Periods

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On Thursday, February 4, 2021, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), with the concurrence of the Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division (DOJ), announced that it had suspended the process by which requests for early termination of Hart-Scott-Rodino Act (HSR Act) waiting periods are granted, potentially signaling a more aggressive approach to merger review.

Key Takeaways

  • For the foreseeable future, filing parties must in all cases wait for the full 30-day waiting period to expire before closing.
  • The rule applies to currently filed transactions and to any new filings.
  • The shift in practice by the FTC and the DOJ may preview a

… Read more

Skadden Discusses “The Year of the SPAC”

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Transactions by special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, exploded in 2020, resulting in a 320% increase in the number of SPAC initial public offerings (IPOs) compared to 2019. SPACs have been around for 15 years and now are established as a legitimate alternative to a traditional merger or IPO. This is due in part to an evolution of the SPAC vehicle, which now offers enhanced investor protections and positions sophisticated managers as “sponsor teams” that guide the company through both the SPAC IPO and the de-SPAC process, as further described below. SPAC prevalence is set to continue through 2021, with … Read more

Goodwin Procter Discusses CFIUS Process for “Non-Notified Transactions”

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Much has been reported in the media about the efforts of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to investigate — and, where appropriate, mitigate, or even divest — transactions that the parties did not submit to CFIUS for review before they were consummated (so-called “non-notified transactions”). A recent Wall Street Journal article called attention to this worrisome trend, noting the Committee’s growing sophistication, enhanced funding for this outreach, appetite for investigating years-old investments, and leveraging of both the intelligence community and publicly available resources.

Although CFIUS outreach has long been a risk factor for the investment … Read more

The Lost Lessons of Shareholder Derivative Suits

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Many corporate law scholars watched in amazement as merger litigation exploded over the past 15 years.  In 2005, only 37 percent of mergers involving U.S. public companies and with a transaction size of at least $100 million were challenged in court.  Today, approximately 85 percent of such mergers are challenged in court.  And these suits look different from the merger suits of the past. Instead of money, for example, shareholders today typically receive additional disclosures about the merger that have little value.  Instead of being filed in Delaware and other state courts, more cases are brought in federal court.  And … Read more

Wachtell Lipton Discusses M&A Activity in 2020 and Expectations for 2021

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Deal activity (or inactivity) for much of 2020 was driven first by the unprecedented uncertainty and massive global shutdown of the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, and then propelled by rising markets and confidence as animal spirits anticipated the light at the end of the tunnel, even against a backdrop of political instability and record levels of infection and death.  Indeed, for M&A, 2020 was a tale of two halves:  the second lowest first-half global M&A volume in the last decade (approximately $1.2 trillion), followed by a 90% increase in the last six months (to approximately $2.4 trillion), for … Read more

Quinn Emanuel Discusses Director Liability for Successors’ Acts

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A great deal of buzz has been generated by the recent decision from the Southern District of New York in In re: Nine West LBO Securities Litigation, No. 20 MD 2941 (JSR) 2020 WL 7090277 (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 4, 2020), with some commentators questioning whether the decision places directors who approve a leveraged buyout at risk of liability for the actions of subsequent boards that occur long after they cease to be directors, or expands directors’ duties beyond maximizing value for shareholders.  See, e.g., Sujeet Indap, Dealmakers warn of chilling effect on buyouts from US court ruling, Financial Times … Read more

Ropes & Gray Discusses UK’s National Security and Investment Bill

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In November, the UK Government announced a significant and wide-ranging package of reforms that, if adopted, will both recalibrate and expand its existing powers to assess and intervene in mergers and acquisitions on the grounds of national security.

The proposed reforms are set out in the National Security and Investment Bill (the “Bill”) and addition to the Competition and Markets Authority’s mergers framework under the Enterprise Act 2002.

A new Investment Security Unit (the “Unit”), which will sit within the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, will be the point of contact for businesses with questions or wishing to … Read more

Cooley Discusses Delaware Chancery Case on MACs and Business Covenants During COVID

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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 (or both) of the following as justification for their failure to close: (i) that the target suffered an MAE as a result of COVID-19’s impact on its business; or (ii) that target materially breached the conduct of business covenant by virtue of its actions (or inactions) in response to COVID-19. … Read more

Contract Design, Default Rules, and Delaware Corporate Law

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Incomplete contract theory recognizes that parties have neither the interest, nor the time, nor the ability to anticipate and address every contingency in contracts. The more complex and time-sensitive the transaction, the more practical constraints force lawyers to limit the scope of drafting and broadly rely on legal defaults and open‑ended terms to plug holes and address contingencies.  In theory, this should explain why practitioners broadly choose Delaware as the preferred jurisdiction and forum for merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions and other high‑end corporate deals.  Lawyers appear to perceive Delaware as superior to other states both for its default rules … Read more

Quinn Emanuel Discusses COVID-19 M&A Litigation in Delaware

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Many high-profile transactions impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic have fallen apart between signing and closing, resulting in litigation – often in the Delaware Court of Chancery – focused on whether the buyer had an obligation to close.  Buyers backing out of transactions generally have asserted the occurrence of a “material adverse change” or “material adverse event” (“MAE”) and the failure of the to-be-acquired company to operate in the ordinary course of business.  Sellers generally have disputed that COVID-19 caused the failure of closing conditions, and have sued for specific performance of buyers’ obligations to close or damages.  As these cases … Read more

Are M&A Lawyers Really Better Than Other Transactional Lawyers at Contract Drafting?

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In a series of papers over the past decade, the three of us have studied extensively the persistence of obsolete terms in sovereign debt contracting. (e.g., here, here and here).  Our interest was motivated by a puzzling observation: Transactional lawyers did not appear to reform their contract clauses promptly in response to changes in the external environment.  In a market with multi-billion dollar transactions, and with some of the most elite law firms in the world, the slow pace of innovation was surprising.  It was especially surprising given the conventional view that good transactional lawyers keep abreast of … Read more

Simpson Thacher Discusses UK Bill to Reform Review Process for Foreign Direct Investment

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On November 11, 2020, the Parliament of the United Kingdom (“U.K.”) introduced the National Security and Investment Bill of 2020 (the “NSI Bill”) to modernize the U.K.’s foreign direct investment (“FDI”) screening process and strengthen its ability to investigate and intervene in transactions targeting U.K. businesses. The NSI Bill imposes mandatory notification requirements to the U.K. Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (“BEIS”) for transactions involving investments in U.K. businesses operating in certain strategic sectors, a regime that will apply to investors from any foreign country.

In the broader context, the NSI Bill is reflective of a global trend … Read more