Deals are deals, unless they turn out not to be. The proposed $4 billion acquisition of Houston-based Mattress Firm by rival Tempur Sealy seemed like a deal. But the Federal Trade Commission last week voted 5-0 to stop the negotiations and sought to do so in a Houston federal court. The FTC complaint contains the usual language about protecting the U.S. consumer, but it also features allegations of retail bullying by Tempur Sealy along with 182-redactions to back that up. A discussion of that, and the usual fare of Texas-related deal summaries and the firms and lawyers involved, is in this week’s CDT Roundup.
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On Winter Storm Uri, the Texas Supreme Court and the Public Utilities Commission’s Power to Address Statewide Emergencies
Earlier this summer, the Texas Supreme Court decided two highly publicized, high-stakes cases arising out of Winter Storm Uri. The upshot of Luminant and RWE appear three-fold for the Texas electricity industry.
Litigation Roundup: Injunctions Against Federal Agencies Mount
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, we look at the lawyers who helped secure recent rulings barring the federal government from regulating horseracing and from enforcing bans on both noncompete agreements and LNG export approvals.
Bracewell Adds Top Energy Partner Michelle Boudreaux
Bracewell has added an experienced partner to its energy regulatory group. Michelle Boudreaux, previously a partner in the energy projects and transactions group at Baker Botts, has joined Bracewell’s Houston office.
Devon Energy Acquires EnCap Bakken Assets for $5B
Kirkland & Ellis and Vinson & Elkins advised on the upstream/midstream deal which includes more than 300,000 acres and a 950-mile gathering system. It marks the third major upstream transaction by Houston-based EnCap Investments in the past month.
Texas Lawbook Hires Jeff Schnick as Editor
The Texas Lawbook has hired longtime business journalist and editor Jeff Schnick as its new editor. Schnick, 45, is the former editor of the Dallas Business Journal and a former assistant business editor at The Dallas Morning News. He will oversee a news team of nine reporters who cover business litigation and trials, corporate mergers, acquisitions and capital markets, law firm management and business bankruptcies.
“We’re working persistently to make our news product more comprehensive across all our coverage areas, as well as to ensure that our premium subscribers are offered more exclusive data and stories,” Schnick said in a Q&A, where he discusses his background, his passion for newspapers and his plans for enhancing Lawbook content.
Travis Torrence’s Road to U.S. Head of Legal for Shell USA
Travis Torrence is the great-great-grandson of slaves who worked on plantations along the River Road in Louisiana — a swath of land between New Orleans and Baton Rouge — just footsteps away from a Shell USA refinery in Convent and just miles away from Shell’s petrochemical plant in Norco. He is the great-grandson of Mississippi sharecroppers. His dad was a truck driver and his mother was a public high school teacher. Three months ago, London-based energy giant Shell named Torrence as its head of legal for its U.S. operations and associate general counsel over global litigation — the first Black person to hold the position.
“My story and my family’s history are not lost on me,” Torrence told The Texas Lawbook in an interview. In this story, Torrence talks family, his days at Shell and the attributes of the outside counsel he seeks to hire.
Power Struggle Underway in AT&T Data Breach MDL
In early June, the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation transferred to U.S. District Judge Ada Brown a group of proposed class action lawsuits brought by dozens of lawyers over the AT&T data breach. Lawyers representing the plaintiffs — who are among the 73 million current and former customers who had their personal information released on the dark web — are already jockeying for leadership positions in the sprawling litigation.
P.S. — Lawyer Joins PUC; DBA Takes Home Slew of Awards
This week’s edition of P.S. includes an upcoming inaugural convention in Houston aimed at supporting and empowering Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, a series of awards recently received by the Dallas Bar Association and the 4/11 on the PUC’s newest board member, who happens to be a lawyer.
Iconic Texas Department Store Chain Neiman Marcus Sold to Saks for $2.65B
Willkie Farr advised the buyer while Sullivan & Cromwell assisted the Dallas-based seller, which Vogue once noted, “is Texas with a French accent.”