* U.S. pays cheated Native Americans.
* Lehman goes after Barclays.
* Vioxx whack-a-mole in Texas.
DEALS & SUITS
MARCH 2010
MORE: corpcounsel.com < < < <
COMCAST
NBC
Comcast Corporation announced
December 3 that it had agreed to acquire
51 percent of NBC Universal, Inc., from
General Electric Company. Comcast
will pay GE $6.5 billion in cash and contribute its cable channels, among them
E!, Style, Versus, and the Golf Channel,
to NBC Universal, which will take on
another $9.1 billion in debt and distribute the money to GE.
In 2004 NBC and Universal Studios were combined into a company in
which GE had an 80 percent stake and
Vivendi SA held 20 percent. In order to
sell the company to Comcast, GE is first
buying Vivendi’s stake for $5.8 billion.
After the sale to Comcast goes through,
GE will be left with 49 percent of NBC
Universal. It will have the right to sell
half of this stake to Comcast three-and-a-half years after the deal closes, and the
remainder seven years after close.
Comcast and GE hope to close the
deal in the second half of the year pending approvals from regulators. Neither
company’s shareholders get a vote.
For acquiror Comcast Corporation
(Philadelphia)
In-House:
M&A: general counsel Arthur Block, senior
deputy general counsel Marc Rockford,
deputy general counsel Matthew Fradin,
Jennifer Heller, and Derek Squire, and
>>>
assistant deputy general counsel Angela
D’Amato and Elizabeth Wideman. Labor
and employment: deputy general counsel
Andrew Topping. Intellectual property:
senior patent litigation counsel David Marcus.
Davis Polk & Wardwell:
M&A: William Aaronson, David Caplan, Marc
Williams, and associates Andrew Delia, Brian
Friedman, Gunnar Janson, Ashleigh Kyle,
Jason Mehar, Stefan Neata, Rose Ramsden,
Robert Rasamny, Aman Solomon, Carson
Stewart, and Johannes Wirtz. Tax: Neil Barr,
Avishai Shachar, and associates Devasish
Majumdar, Kay Ng, and Craig Phillips.
Intellectual property: Frank Azzopardi
and associates Matthew Bacal and Pritesh
Shah. Employee benefits and executive
compensation: Kyoko Takahashi Lin, counsel
Cynthia Akard, and associate Gillian Emmett
Moldowan. Real estate: Thomas Patrick
Dore, Jr., and associates Jeffrey Meriggi,
Aaron Sacks, and Lucie Shin. Credit: Joseph
Hadley, Jason Kyr wood, and associate Derek
Thomas Fears. Capital markets: Bruce Dallas.
Environmental: Gail Flesher and associate
Hayden Baker. Antitrust: Arthur Burke,
Ronan Harty, and counsel Stephen Pepper.
(All are in New York except for Akard and Dallas,
who are in Menlo Park, California.)
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer:
Corporate: Javier Gomez-Acebo, William
Lawes, Takeshi Nakao, Norbert Nolte, Mario
Ortu, Ben Spiers, and Chris Sunt. Antitrust:
John Davies, Andrea Gomes da Silva, Thomas
Lübbig, Axel Reidlinger, and Gian Luca Zampa.
Employment, pensions, and benefits:
Jocelyn Mitchell. Real estate: Emma Kendall
and Benoit Marcilhacy. Intellectual property:
Klaus Beucher and Connie Carnabuci. (All are
in London except for the following: Gomez-Acebo is in Madrid; Nakao is in Tokyo; Nolte and
Beucher are in Cologne; Ortu is in Milan; Sunt
is in Brussels; Lübbig is in Berlin; Reidlinger is in
Vienna; Zampa is in Rome; Marcilhacy is in Paris;
and Carnabuci is in Hong Kong.)
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius:
Labor law: Stanley Lechner, David McManus,
senior attorney Michael Lignowski, and
associates John Ferrer, Ross Friedman, and
Thomas Hogan. (Lechner and Ferrer are in
Washington, D.C.; McManus and Hogan are
in New York; Lignowski is in Philadelphia; and
Friedman is in Chicago.)
Morris, Nichols, Arsht & Tunnell:
Corporate: David Harris, Louis Hering, James
Honaker, Walter Tuthill, and associate Tarik
Haskins. Litigation: Kenneth Nachbar. (All are
in Wilmington.)
Pepper Hamilton:
Employee benefits: Andrew Rudolph. (He is
in Philadelphia.)
Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton:
Entertainment: Robert Darwell, Thomas Leo,
Linda Michaelson, Benjamin Mulcahy, special
counsel Dina Appleton, and associate Stacy
Dollarhide. (All are in Century City, California,
except for New York–based Mulcahy.)
Willkie Farr & Gallagher:
Telecommunications: James Casserly,
Michael Hammer, special counsel Jonathan
Friedman, Michael Jones, and Ryan Wallach,
and associates Daniel Alvarez, Brien Bell, Mia
William Aaronson
Davis Polk
Kevin Rinker
Debevoise
Howard Chatzinoff
Weil, Gotshal
Ruth Fisher
Gibson, Dunn
Louis Goldberg
Davis Polk
Deborah Garza
Covington
Roger Aaron
Skadden
