| Clients |
Firms |
Background |
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| M&A |
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| PPL Corporation acquired E.ON U.S. LLC’s power and natural gas unit in an all-cash deal worth $6.7 billion. |
For PPL: Simpson Thacher and K&L Gates |
For E.ON: Sullivan & Cromwell |
Simpson Thacher has represented PPL for some 80 years. S&C was counsel to PowerGen, which E.ON purchased in 2002. |
| Forming a strategic alliance, Daimler AGwill take a 3.1 percent stake in both Renault SA and Nissan Motor Co., Ltd., while Nissan and Renault each take a 1.55 percent stake in Daimler. |
For Daimler: Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer |
For Renault: Sullivan & Cromwell. For Nissan: Nishimura & Asahi |
Freshfields also advised Daimler on its decision to sell a $2.7 billion stake to a state-run investment fund in Abu Dhabi. |
| Oklahoma City–based SandRidge Energy will acquire rival oil and natural gas explorer Arena Resources, Inc., for $1.55 billion. |
For SandRidge: Covington & Burling and Hall Estill |
For Arena: Johnson& Jones |
Covington landed the SandRidge work after advising on the sale of Kerr-McGee Corporation—also an Oklahoma City company—to Anadarko Petroleum Corporation. Johnson & Jones has repped Arena since winning a 2004 beauty contest for the company’s corporate work. |
| Prison operator The GEO Group, Inc.,will purchase rival Cornell Companies, Inc., for $685 million in stock and cash. |
For GEO: Akerman Senterfitt |
For Cornell: Hogan Lovells |
Akerman has been GEO’s outside counsel since thecompany formed in the 1980s. Hogan Lovells predecessor Hogan & Hartson had advised Cornell for several years. |
| Visa, Inc., will pay $2 billion for CyberSource Corporation, an online payment processing company. |
For Visa: Skadden, Arps and Arnold & Porter |
For CyberSource: Reed Smith |
Visa is a longtime Skadden client. The lead Reed Smith partner on this deal, Richard Scudellari, has been on CyberSource’s board of directors since its inception in 1996. |
| Macquarie Group Limited willbuy 53 aircraft from American International Group, Inc.’s aircraft leasing unit, International Lease Finance Corporation, for nearly $2 billion. |
For Macquarie: Vedder Price |
For AIG: Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. For the Federal Reserve Bank of New York: Davis Polk & Wardwell |
Milbank has worked with AIG since late 2008, when the company and the U.S. government, which owns nearly 80 percent of the insurer, looked to sell the entire international lease unit. Vedder Price has been Macquarie’s aviation counsel since 2004. |
| LBO |
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| Private military services contractor DynCorp International Inc. will be bought out by Cerberus Capital Management, L.P., for $1.5 billion. |
For Cerberus: Akin Gump and Jenner & Block |
For DynCorp: Schulte Roth and Richards, Layton |
Schulte’s Benjamin Polk is longtime counsel to private equity firm The Veritas Capital Fund, L.P., DynCorp’s largest shareholder. Akin Gump has previously worked for Cerberus in China and on restructuring matters. |
| IPO |
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| Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance Company, Limited, debuted on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in a $11 billion IPO, the largest in the world in the past two years. |
For Dai-ichi: Nishimura & Asahi and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett |
For underwriters including Nomura Securities International: Anderson Mori & Tomotsune and Sullivan & Cromwell |
This is the first time Simpson Thacher has worked for Dai-ichi. The firm also worked on the IPOs of Sony Financial Holdings, Inc., and Seven Bank, Ltd., in Japan. |
| LITIGATION |
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| Rapper Jay-Z’s The Name LLC v. David Ortiz of the Boston Red Sox, in a suit thatclaims the slugger’s Forty/Forty Club infringed the trademark of Jay-Z’s own nightclub, the 40/40 Club. |
For The Name: Reed Smith |
For Ortiz: At press timeno counselhad appearedfor Ortiz. |
Reed Smith’s Peter Raymond, The Name’s lead counsel, also represented rapper 50 Cent in litigation against Taco Bell Corp. At press time Ortiz had not responded to The Name’s allegations. |
| Amazon.com v. North Carolina secretary of revenue Kenneth Lay, in a suit that claims the state’s request for customer information violates Amazon customers’ privacy and First Amendment rights. |
For Amazon.com: Davis Wright Tremaine |
For Lay: North Carolina Department of Justice and McKay Chadwell |
The NC Revenue Department said its request for customer data for tax collection purposes did not violate shoppers’ rights. |
