MAGAZINE
August 2019 Issue
Financier Worldwide Magazine
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COVER STORY
Tempered TIER tantalises US-China trade war thaw
Costly and predictable, the US-China trade war has continued to escalate in recent months, with the US raising tariffs and China vowing to retaliate in kind – despite the Chinese offering an olive branch designed to warm relations between the two superpowers...
FEATURES
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming organisations, driving growth and innovation and changing the way they think about integrating and analysing data. While there are regulatory, ethical and privacy concerns surrounding AI’s applications, for financial institutions (FIs)...
The chief financial officer (CFO) plays a pivotal role in designing and driving company strategy and is responsible for ensuring that a high state of operational resilience and efficiency is maintained. Today, they must be stubborn in the face of ever-evolving challenges...
Beneficial for companies and the communities they serve, environmental and social governance (ESG) oversight has increased dramatically in recent years, to the extent that it is now a core component of companies’ corporate policy and strategy...
The fight against fraud, bribery and corruption is never ending. Since the global financial crisis, authorities in the US, the UK and elsewhere have attempted to combat corporate malfeasance wherever it is found. Self-reporting has become one important...
After arriving amid a chorus of concern, even foreboding, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has steadily bedded-in and has now passed its first anniversary – no longer deemed an instrument of fear, uncertainty and doubt...
ROUNDTABLE
THE PANELLISTS: Josep Montefusco, Clifford Chance; Stanley M. Gibson, Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP; Bill Devitt, Jones Day; Joshua L. Simmons, Kirkland & Ellis LLP; Clemens Heusch, Nokia; David A. Prange, Robins Kaplan LLP; and Trent Webb, Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP.
Resolving a patent dispute can be complex, highly technical and time consuming. An arena particularly subject to litigation, over the past year a host of key decisions have had an impact, affecting patent eligibility requirements, administrative proceedings...
SPECIAL REPORT
One critical element of today’s business landscape is paying attention to antitrust and competition issues – an especially acute concern given the increasing prevalence of cross-border components in transactions and the greater...
Q&A: Effective use of expert witnesses in competition disputes
FW moderates a discussion on the effective use of expert witnesses in competition disputes between Miguel de la Mano, Thilo Klein, Frédéric Palomino and David Sevy at Compass Lexecon.
Why all businesses need an effective competition law compliance programme
Ashurst LLP Regulators around the world are becoming increasingly active in their enforcement of competition law. Around 150 countries have competition laws and no business, regardless of size and industry sector, is safe from regulatory scrutiny. Large businesses continue...
Canadian Competition Bureau actively investigating below-threshold mergers
McCarthy Tétrault LLP Once merging parties conclude that their transaction is not reportable to competition authorities, they often assume that competition law considerations have been dispensed with and focus on other deal points. However, just because a transaction falls below...
Merger control: the road ahead
K&L Gates EU commissioner for competition Margrethe Vestager delivered a speech entitled ‘Merger control: the road ahead’ in Brussels on 18 June 2019. As she will reach the end of her five-year mandate on 31 October 2019, it is a good time to evaluate how the competition...
Digital markets: recent competition law developments in the EU
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates In recent years, the debate over antitrust enforcement in digital markets has intensified. Hefty fines levied on Google by the European Commission (EC) and multiple European probes into ‘big tech’ companies, including Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple...
Gun-jumping: the growing firepower of EU and UK merger authorities
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP On 11 February 2019, the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) upheld the first ever ‘gun-jumping’ fine imposed by the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The £100,000 fine was found by the CAT to be “appropriate” in light of the “utmost importance...
An overview of the Belgian Competition Authority’s activity
CMS Law 2018 marked the 25th anniversary of the Belgian Competition Authority (BCA). On that occasion, the BCA took stock of its activity and priorities for the future. Its findings and conclusions were recently published, on 17 June 2019, in its 2018 annual report...
Putting the ‘aid’ in dawn raid: a lesson in first response
Arnold & Porter In the midst of your morning coffee, reading your financial broadsheet of choice, you receive an alarming call from reception; officials from the European Commission (EC) have arrived at the office announcing a dawn raid. In the search for anti-competitive agreements...
How to deal with data while complying with antitrust law
Clifford Chance Data has been described as the new asset class of today’s economy. Companies increasingly collect, analyse and report vast volumes of data. This increasing collection of data and the ability to produce insights from it has important consequences in the field of competition compliance...
Funding private enforcement actions
Shepherd and Wedderburn The general trajectory of an increasing number of ever higher fines against cartelists is now being matched with an increased vigour on the part of claimants who have suffered losses to bring damages claims seeking recompense. The UK remains one of the...
TALKINGpoint
M&A analytics – deal valuations and due diligence
FW moderates a discussion between Andrew Robinson, Steve Xing, Chris Woolley and Angelina Kuznetsova at Deloitte on M&A analytics, focusing on deal valuations and due diligence.
Reducing third-party fraud risk
FW moderates a discussion between Richard Shave and Natalie Butcher at BDO LLP on reducing third-party fraud risk.
DEALfront
mergers & acquisitions
United Technologies and Raytheon create giant through all-stock deal
Raytheon and United Technologies have agreed to an all-stock merger of equals which will create a $120bn aerospace and defence giant. The deal is expected to generate more than $1bn in cost synergies by the end of the fourth year, the companies said in a...
Salesforce to buy Tableau Software for $15.7bn
In a combination that will drive digital transformation around the world – spending on which the International Data Corporation (IDC) projects will reach $1.8 trillion by 2022 – leading global customer relationship management (CRM) company Salesforce...
private equity & venture capital
Blackstone buys warehouse assets for $18.7bn
Private equity giant Blackstone Group LP has announced that it is acquiring the US industrial warehouse properties of Singapore-based logistics provider GLP for $18.7bn. The deal is the largest ever private real estate transaction globally and Blackstone’s...
In a transaction with an enterprise value of $1.7bn, Swedish private equity (PE) group EQT’s Mid Market fund has sold high-growth fibre infrastructure provider IP-Only to EQT Infrastructure – the EQT arm tasked with identifying investment opportunities...
bankruptcy & corporate restructuring
Fusion Connect files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy
As a result of the failure of two recent acquisitions, cloud services provider Fusion Connect, and each of its US subsidiaries, has entered into a Restructuring Support Agreement (RSA) with lenders holding more than two-thirds of the aggregate outstanding...
Arcadia Group, the fashion retail firm, has narrowly avoided administration after a group of the company’s creditors agreed to its controversial restructuring plan. Under the terms of its plan, Arcadia, the parent company of Topshop, Topman, Burton...
SPOTlight
Are you prepared for the conscious consumer?
SAI Global In an environment where conscious consumerism has gone mainstream and trust in business is paramount, managing this new breed of customer expectations and perceptions has become critical to building organisational resilience. In the decade since...
CJEU Danish cases on beneficial ownership and treaty abuse
NovioTax On 26 February 2019, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) issued landmark judgements in six cases which deal with the application of the EC Parent-Subsidiary Directive and the EC Interest and Royalty Directive. The majority of the cases involved...
CONTRIBUTORS
Arnold & Porter
Ashurst LLP
BDO LLP
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP
Clifford Chance
CMS Law
Compass Lexecon
Deloitte
Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell LLP
Jones Day
K&L Gates
Kirkland & Ellis LLP
McCarthy Tétrault LLP
Nokia
NovioTax
Robins Kaplan LLP
SAI Global
Shepherd and Wedderburn
Shook, Hardy & Bacon LLP
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP and Affiliates