Sky Blog
Regulatory clearance is one of the most consequential variables in many M&A transactions. The increasing complexity of many regulatory regimes and M&A transactions, the evolving (and often more aggressive) positions of regulators, and the growing politicization of some approval processes …
In January 2026, the Delaware Supreme Court issued an en banc decision in J&J v. Fortis, a high-profile earnout dispute arising from Johnson & Johnson’s acquisition of Auris Health, involving up to $2.35 billion in contingent payments tied to regulatory …
Over the past decade, many companies have embraced the language and practices of stakeholder governance. Corporate mission statements, sustainability reports, and ESG disclosures frequently highlight commitments to employees, communities, and environmental sustainability. Boards authorize charitable-giving programs, diversity initiatives, and policies …
Prediction markets allow participants to trade contracts on whether or not real-world events will occur. These platforms have grown rapidly, and contracts tied to specific company activity are now actively trading, including contracts on IPOs, mergers and acquisitions, earnings call …
In principle, a potential acquirer may use private information to initiate a deal and offer to pay for the target with temporary overpriced shares. Analogous to insider trading in secondary equity markets, and irrespective of how the deal plays out, …
In late 2025, when Warner Brothers Discovery (WBD) was actively considering sale of the company, Netflix and Paramount emerged as likely purchasers. Knowing that a merger with either itself or Netflix would raise antitrust concerns, Paramount included in its offer …
In a recent decision that financial advisors should take note of, the Delaware Court of Chancery declined to dismiss a claim that a financial advisor aided and abetted breaches of fiduciary duty by the board of directors of a special …
Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly being integrated into mergers and acquisitions (M&A), supporting negotiations, determining the value of the target, drafting relevant contracts – and, most important, helping perform due diligence. Yet, its role in this context raises questions about …
Key Points
Summary
In a year marked by not-insignificant change — geopolitical, economic, technological, regulatory and market — 2025 has been a year of much increased M&A activity, in the United States and around the world. M&A deal volume in the United States …
In the market for corporate control, regulation has long been viewed as a tax on activity, a hurdle to overcome, or a cost to be priced in. The conventional wisdom is straightforward: More regulation equals less activity. However, in a …
How do early‐stage documents – term sheets, letters of intent (LOIs), and memoranda of understanding (MOUs) – shape the path to a definitive merger agreement? Despite their ubiquity, we still know surprisingly little empirically about how these instruments structure negotiations, …
Despite decades of research on M&A outcomes, a puzzling question persists: Why do acquiring firms receive, on average, almost no cumulative abnormal returns around deal announcements (i.e., Betton, Eckbo, and Thorburn, 2008; Moeller, Schlingemann, and Stulz, 2004)? Numerous studies have …
On June 16, 2025, the Department of Justice’s National Security Division (“NSD”) and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas announced a landmark declination to prosecute private equity firm White Deer Management LLC following its voluntary self-disclosure …
The Federal Trade Commission and the DOJ’s Antitrust Division recently announced two settlement agreements, signaling that this Administration is willing to resolve merger competition concerns — in appropriate cases — through negotiated divestiture remedies. These actions herald a return to …
The state of Washington became the first to enact a broad premerger notification law covering transactions across all industries. The law, S.B. 5122,[1] was enacted on April 4, 2025, and goes into effect July 27, 2025. S.B. 5122, modeled …
On January 7, 2025, XCL Resources Holdings, LLC (“XCL”), XCL subsidiary Verdun Oil Company II, LLC (“Verdun”), and EP Energy LLC (“EP,” and with XCL and Verdun, the “Defendants”) agreed to a record-setting civil penalty of $5,684,377 (and related behavioral …
After a relative low in global M&A in 2023, the past year witnessed a moderate uptick as the pandemic receded further into the rear-view mirror, the U.S. economy stabilized, inflation declined (albeit with some renewed concern toward the end of
With the change of administrations in January 2025, antitrust enforcement priorities are likely to shift next year. We expect the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in the Trump Administration to continue to …