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Good morning. Lawyers and bankers are optimistic that global M&A activity will pick up after falling to its lowest level in ten years. Plus, Semafor is facing a lawsuit over alleged trade secret theft; Rudy Giuliani filed for bankruptcy; Orrick is poised to settle a lawsuit over a recent data breach that affected the law firm; and legal experts said a ruling against soccer governing bodies UEFA and FIFA could threaten their long-term dominance.
The Daily Docket team wishes everyone a happy holiday season and New Year! We’ll return on Jan. 2. Were you forwarded this email? Subscribe here.
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Mergers and acquisitions activity fell to its lowest level in ten years globally in 2023, as high interest rates and an economic slowdown weighed on companies’ dealmaking confidence, but bankers and lawyers expect a pick-up as conditions improve, our colleagues Anirban Sen and Anousha Sakoui report.
Total M&A volumes fell 18% to about $3 trillion, according to the most recent data from Dealogic, the lowest since 2013 when deal volumes were at $2.8 trillion. Dealmakers blamed high interest rates, which made it more expensive for private equity firms and companies with low credit ratings to raise acquisition financing. At the same time, economic uncertainty and market volatility made it harder for acquirers and sellers to agree on deal prices.
There are potential headwinds for activity levels next year, but investment bankers said corporate buyers are unlikely to put strategic M&A planning on hold. M&A advisers said the pipeline of deals going into 2024 looks healthier compared to the same period last year.
“Standing here today, the market has started to accelerate, both in terms of confidence levels in C-suites and boardrooms as well as the number of companies that are in active dialogue around transactions,” said Jim Langston, co-head of U.S. M&A at Cleary Gottlieb.
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- Orrick said it was working out a settlement to resolve claims in a proposed class-action that the firm failed to protect personal information in a March 2023 data breach. Orrick in a statement said the firm regretted the “inconvenience and distraction that this malicious incident caused.”
- Kazakh mining group ENRC is entitled to damages from the UK’s Serious Fraud Office over a decade-long corruption probe that the SFO eventually aborted, London’s High Court ruled. ENRC was seeking around $26.6 million for “unnecessary” work which it blamed on the actions of the SFO and Dechert, whose former co-head of white-collar crime Neil Gerrard conducted an internal investigation for ENRC.
- A federal jury in Chicago found former city alderman Edward Burke guilty of racketeering. Burke was accused by prosecutors of abusing his position as an alderman on the Chicago City Council to steer property tax appeals work to his private law firm, Klafter & Burke. His lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
- Midsize New York law firm Moses & Singer is facing a lawsuit by a former partner who alleged the firm fired her in October shortly after she requested medical accommodations related to her pregnancy. Ex-partner Megan Daneshrad said she did not receive the accommodations and soon after lost the pregnancy. She claims in her lawsuit against the firm and several partners that she faced “systemic gender discrimination.” The firm’s marketing director did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Employers who want to make it harder for their workers to arbitrate wage-and-hour demands should raise a cup of good cheer to the Manhattan strip club Rick’s Cabaret New York. Alison Frankel details why a 2nd Circuit win for the strip club’s parent might embolden employers to insist on contract terms that require employees to pay an equal share of the requisite fees to initiate arbitration — even if those terms conflict with arbitration providers’ rules.
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“Freedom agrees with me.“
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- X Corp’s lawyers at McDermott are due to defend the social media company’s lawsuit accusing a nonprofit that fights hate speech and disinformation of asserting false claims and encouraging advertisers to pause investment on the platform. The Center for Countering Digital Hate, represented by Kaplan Hecker, has urged a California federal judge to throw out what it called a “ridiculous” lawsuit by Elon Musk’s X to stifle free expression.
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Court calendars are subject to last-minute docket changes.
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- An NLRB judge ruled that Whole Foods did not violate U.S. workers’ labor rights by barring them from wearing Black Lives Matter face masks, shirts and other apparel. Administrative Law Judge Ariel Sotolongo said in the decision that donning Black Lives Matter garb was not protected activity under the National Labor Relations Act because it had little connection to Whole Foods workers’ jobs.
- Ozy Media sued startup news outlet Semafor and its founder Ben Smith in federal court in Brooklyn for allegedly stealing trade secrets from the now-shuttered U.S. media and entertainment company. Neither Smith nor Semafor’s communications team immediately responded to requests for comment.
- California said it will appeal a federal judge’s order temporarily blocking a state law that would have banned carrying guns in most public places as of Jan. 1. U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney of the Central District of California wrote in his preliminary injunction that the law would “unconstitutionally deprive” concealed carry permit holders “of their constitutional right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense.”
- U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria in San Francisco dismissed consumers’ renewed effort to block Kroger’s $25 billion proposed acquisition of rival grocer Albertsons. The judge said the plaintiffs had not adequately alleged how the merger would harm them. The deal is subject to an ongoing FTC review, a lawyer for Kroger at Arnold & Porter told the court.
- A California federal jury found Disney should pay nearly $600,000 in copyright damages for using another company’s motion-capture technology to make its 2017 live-action remake of “Beauty and the Beast.” Disney had denied Rearden LLC’s copyright allegations.
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- McGlinchey Stafford added labor and employment partner Susan Fahey Desmond in New Orleans from Jackson Lewis. (McGlinchey Stafford)
- McDermott hired energy project finance partner Jeeseon Ahn in New York. Ahn arrives from Milbank. (McDermott)
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