Lexpert Roundup on the Business of Law
Lexpert identifies and reports on emerging business issues and practice areas in the business of law. Whether online, in our magazine or in the DealsWire e-newsletter, we chronicle deals and lawsuits of interest, and cover issues of broad concern to the legal profession and those who purchase legal services. We hope you enjoy this sample of our latest content.
From the DealsWire: HBC-Gilt, Roots Canada sells out, Polish entity buys Kicking Horse
The Lexpert DealsWire (subscribe here) documents facts, figures and key legal players behind recent deals. This week's announced deal spotlight features the key players and figures in HBC's acquisition of Gilt.
In our closed deals section, we look at Centric Health's divestment of some of its businesses to Audax Group, as well as BayBridge Seniors Housing's acquisition of Amica Mature Lifestyles.
We also look at the players behind Roots Canada's sale of a majority stake to Searchlight Capital Partners. Finally, we give you the legal teams on junior producer Kicking Horse Energy's sale to a subsidiary of Polish energy giant PKN ORLEN.
Strange bedfellows
The acquisition of Plenty of Fish by The Match Group was a rare gem — a straight cash transaction where an enormous media conglomerate, IAC/InterActiveCorp, was forced to negotiate with just one person – the man who'd bootstrapped POF into a $575-million (U.S.) enterprise. Lexpert interviewed lawyers on the deal.
Break fees increasingly used in private M&A
Break fees and reverse break fees, long the virtually exclusive province of public M&A are edging their way into the private sector lexicon. Why? Because they are used as a deal protection measure to create more certainty, which parties are looking for in the current economy, especially in the energy sector.
Law firm mergers: The Canadian rationale
By February the old Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP will be gone, joining the pantheon of familiar names extinguished to feed the twin beasts of globalization and growth. Go big or stay home? It's a question more than a few law firm strategists are wrestling with.
Lexpert's Top 10 Business Decisions of 2015
In a less than stellar year for business, only decisions relating to privilege, certification and leave can be seen as decidedly positive in our Top Ten Cases of 2015 list. Canada's courts delivered body blows to several other issues.
Bracing for the breach: Part II
Legal tech columnist George Takach looks into groundbreaking research project in the United States that, based on an empirical analysis, studied 1,772 data breaches that occurred in the US between 2005 and 2010 — and the 230 federal lawsuits that emanated from these data breaches.
Lawyers as whistleblowers
When a lawyer knows that a product is likely to cause injury or death, or when she has a good idea that company decisions will wreak financial havoc, why shouldn't she be expected to blow the whistle? Recent moves by regulators are likely to make that question a more difficult one, writes University of Alberta Law Dean Paul Paton in this month's Last Word column.
Emotional intelligence
Generally companies teach employees to perform effectively as a team in order to attain common goals, rather than be defeated by internal competition. This is good for business, so why aren't law firms doing the same, writes editor-in-chief Jean Cumming in this month's Change Agent column.
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