SEC Chair Gensler To Step Down When Trump Takes Office

By Jessica Corso

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chair Gary Gensler said Thursday that he will be leaving the agency on Jan. 20, clearing the way for new leadership under an incoming Trump administration that is expected to dismantle Gensler's climate disclosure regulation and open the SEC's door to more crypto-friendly policies.

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Accel-KKR Closes Tech-Focused Fund With $2.2B In Tow

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Technology-focused private equity shop Accel-KKR on Thursday announced that it closed its AKKR Strategic Capital LP fund after raking in over $2.2 billion of investor commitments, which will be used to invest in a range of transactions mainly focused on the software industry in the secondary market.

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Kirkland-Led LLCP Secures $575M For Continuation Fund

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Middle-market private equity shop Levine Leichtman Capital Partners, advised by Kirkland & Ellis LLP, on Thursday announced that it closed a multiasset continuation fund after securing $575 million in capital commitments, which will be used to buy interests in three portfolio companies.

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White & Case Guides Mediaocean On $525M Innovid Buy

By Al Barbarino

Private equity-backed advertising company Mediaocean said Thursday it has agreed to buy software platform Innovid for roughly $525 million, with White & Case LLP and Latham & Watkins LLP steering the deal as legal counsel. 

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PE Posting Near-Record Megadeal Numbers, Report Shows

By Al Barbarino

Private equity dealmaking has built significant momentum this year, notching respectable deal volume and posting a record number of megadeals over $5 billion, according to a new report from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

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Deals Rumor Mill

Trump Eyes Crypto, SpaceX To Sell Shares, And More Rumors

By Tom Zanki

Donald Trump's social media company wants to enter the cryptocurrency business, while Elon Musk's SpaceX is planning a tender offer of shares that values the space technology startup at $250 billion. Here, Law360 breaks down these and other notable deal rumors from the past week.

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New SEC 'Dealer' Rule Tossed In Win For Hedge Funds, Crypto

By Jessica Corso & Aislinn Keely

A Texas federal judge on Thursday overturned a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rule that expanded the definition of "dealer" to include proprietary trading firms, some hedge funds and crypto firms, saying the agency overstepped its authority when it adopted the rule.

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3 Firms Guide $370M Investment In Hospitality Co Lighthouse

By Elaine Briseño

Travel and hospitality platform Lighthouse, steered by Paul Weiss and Latham & Watkins, has received $370 million in a Series C investment round led by Gibson Dunn-advised private equity firm KKR that will be used to "drive continued product innovation," the company announced Thursday.

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2 Energy Transition-Focused SPACs Raise $210M Combined

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Two special purpose acquisition companies looking to capitalize on energy transition opportunities began trading publicly on Thursday after announcing pricing for their respective initial public offerings, which combined would raise $210 million.

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Consortium Set To Complete €2.2B Cybersecurity Biz Buy

By Dawood Fakhir

Exclusive Networks said Thursday that its biggest shareholder Permira and U.S. private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice have won all the regulatory clearances for their approximately €2.2 billion buy of the French cybersecurity firm.

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Tritax Investors Greenlight Brookfield's £557M Takeover

By Tom Fish

Shareholders at Tritax EuroBox shareholders have approved a £557 million bid by Canadian investment management giant Brookfield to acquire the U.K. logistics real estate investor.

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Freshfields Helps PE Firm Cinven Invest In Grant Thornton UK

By Najiyya Budaly

Private equity firm Cinven said Thursday that it plans to buy a majority stake in "big six" accountant Grant Thornton UK in a move to capitalize on the resilient professional services and advisory sector.

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Big Lots Seeks To Include Claims Against Execs In Asset Sale

By Rick Archer

Discount retailer Big Lots on Thursday asked a Delaware bankruptcy judge to approve a $760 million asset sale to a private equity group and override creditor objections to the inclusion of potential litigation claims against company insiders in the package.

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Sterlington Boosts Aviation Group With Ex-Mintz Member

By Tracey Read

Sterlington PLLC has added a first-chair litigator in commercial, partnership, private aviation and intellectual property disputes from Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC as a partner in New York.

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Mayer Brown Practice Co-Head To Lead Linklaters Team

By Andrea Keckley

Following a series of high-level corporate and finance hires this year, Linklaters announced Thursday that it is hiring the former co-leader of Mayer Brown LLP's infrastructure mergers and acquisitions practice as its head of U.S. infrastructure and private capital M&A.

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3 Ways To Train Junior Lawyers In 30 Minutes Or Less

Today’s junior lawyers are experiencing a skills gap due to pandemic-era disruptions, but firms can help bring them up to speed by offering high-impact skill building content in bite-sized, interactive training sessions, say Stacey Schwartz at Katten, Diane Costigan at Winston & Strawn and Lauren Tierney at Freshfields.

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How They Won It

How A Purple Jacket Led To A Murder Exoneration And $13M

By Julie Manganis

To win compensation under a Massachusetts state law, lawyers for Michael J. Sullivan, who spent 26 years in prison, were required to prove he was innocent of the 1986 crime for which he was convicted. A couple of lucky breaks helped.

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Interview

High Court Bar's Future: Sullivan & Cromwell's Morgan Ratner

By Jeff Overley

Morgan L. Ratner has emerged as a leader of the U.S. Supreme Court bar's next generation, and she attributes her ascent to brilliant mentors, a laid-back argument style, an aversion to overconfidence and a firm commitment to clear principles in every case — even if that means reluctantly telling the chief justice, as she once did, that a hypothetical cat stuck in a tree shouldn't be saved.

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Trump Sentencing Halted To Weigh President-Elect's Immunity

By Frank G. Runyeon

The New York state judge who oversaw Donald Trump's hush money trial officially canceled his Nov. 26 sentencing date Friday to weigh the impact of his new status as president-elect, pushing briefing into December.

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UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Max Austin

This past week in London has seen cash-strapped Thurrock Borough Council bring a £40 million ($50 million) negligence claim against 23 other local authorities over its solar investments from a not-for-profit local government body, AstraZeneca sue a fire safety company following a blaze at its Cambridge headquarters last year, and a director who was convicted in 2016 for corporate manslaughter face action by Manolete Partners. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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Bonus Spotlight

Top Firms Big And Small Join In On Milbank Bonuses

By Aebra Coe

The latest law firms to follow Milbank LLP on 2024 associate bonuses late Thursday and into Friday run the gamut from global giant to boutique, according to firm memos shared with Law360 Pulse and media reports.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Andrea Keckley

Goldman Ismail Tomaselli Brennan & Baum LLP, King & Spalding LLP, Holland & Knight LLP and Barnes & Thornburg LLP lead this week's list of Law360 legal lions for beating a Pennsylvania state court lawsuit brought against Bayer AG unit Monsanto by a woman who said she got cancer by using the weed killer Roundup.

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Squire Patton Lawyer Dies In Laos Amid Poisoning Reports

By Ashish Sareen

A junior lawyer at Squire Patton Boggs LLP has died in Laos, the law firm confirmed Friday, amid reports in the media that she was the victim of a suspected mass poisoning incident.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

Google's chief legal officer has blasted a U.S. Department of Justice proposal to force it to sell its Chrome browser, saying a sale would "break" a range of Google products and be a threat to U.S. tech leadership in the world. And in a close but surprising outcome, California voters have turned down a minimum wage hike for workers.

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Gaetz, Greene Face Atty Fees Bid For $550,000 In Calif. Suit

By Madison Arnold

Progressive groups including the NAACP are seeking more than $550,000 in attorney fees and costs from U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and former Rep. Matt Gaetz after escaping their lawsuit alleging that the organizations conspired to pressure city officials in California to cancel the politicians' rallies.

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Analysis

Bondi Vowed Trump Payback. Ex-Colleagues Aren't Worried.

By Phillip Bantz, Chris Villani and Carolina Bolado

U.S. attorney general nominee Pam Bondi is an outspoken ally of President-elect Donald Trump and vowed during the campaign that his "prosecutors will be prosecuted," but people who've worked with her say she's well qualified to serve as the nation's top cop and downplayed concerns that she would politicize the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Brief

Navajo Co. Dismisses Case Alleging Paralegal Took Docs

By Thy Vo

A natural resources company owned by the Navajo Nation has dismissed a lawsuit against a paralegal it accused of failing to turn in her computer for removal of its privileged documents, after the paralegal said she had already arranged to surrender her device before the lawsuit was even filed.

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Senior Dem Asks Schumer For Votes On Circuit Court Picks

By Courtney Bublé

Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on Friday pushed back against a deal Democrats and Republicans cut earlier this week that obligates Democrats to forgo votes on four appellate picks.

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