Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
An Eastern District of Texas jury in Marshall swatted Verizon Wireless with a $190 million verdict for infringement of a patent owned by Aspen Networks, a California technology company. The case is one of three such cases alleging the unauthorized use of Aspen's system to connect cellular phone calls in-progress between cell and Wi-Fi systems. The other two cases involving AT&T Mobility and T-Mobile USA are still pending.
Two new federal judges with connections to The Valley will be taking the bench in Texas soon, after the Senate Judiciary Committee gave approval to President Donald Trump’s nominees for the roles in the Southern District of Texas.
In this edition of Asked & Answered, FBFK’s Solomon Wisenberg talks about how he got involved in the Whitewater-Lewinsky investigation and what trends he is seeing in his white collar criminal defense practice. While the Texan has spent the majority of his career in Washington, D.C., he returned home to the Lone Star state a few years ago and joined FBFK in December.
An error in the jury charge means Union Pacific Railroad Company will be getting a new trial in a lawsuit brought by a woman who drunkenly fell asleep on the tracks in a seated position and sued the company for her injuries.
SpaceX announced on June 16 in a social media post that it exercised an option to acquire Cursor in an all-stock transaction valued at $60 billion, with Gibson Dunn and Kirkland advising.
SpaceX plans to fold Cursor into its X67 Inc. unit. The deal was first announced in April, when SpaceX said it would “pay $10 billion for our work together” if it didn’t exercise the option.
Olin Corp. and Huntsman Corp. announced June 16 that they have merged in an all-stock deal that creates a chemicals company with more than $12 billion in annual sales.
Kirkland, Cravath and Sidley advised on the transaction.
Yum! Brands has agreed to sell Pizza Hut to Connecticut private equity firm LongRange Capital for about $1.5 billion, with an earn-out option of $75 million by 2030, while Pizza Hut in mainland China will be acquired by Yum China Holdings for about $1.2 billion.
Sidley, Weil and Mayer Brown are serving as outside legal advisors.
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Fort Worth regional office gets a final judgment against a Mansfield man accused in a $2.9 million fraud, and a company that offers an array of services to fuel retailers turns to the Texas Business Court in pursuit of $21 million in damages.
For the week ended June 13, the CDT Roundup reported on ten deals with a disclosed value of $11 billion.
A year ago at this time, the Roundup reported on nine deals with a combined disclosed value of $478 million.
By far the largest deal of the week was a massive venture involving PE, a sovereign fund, a power provider and a major chipmaker. That and more in this edition of CDT Roundup.
Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher confirmed in a news release on Thursday afternoon that the firm is the lead counsel to SpaceX on its initial public offering set to price Friday and revealed the lawyers involved across the entire transaction. (Photo credit: Sharon Ferranti/Texas Lawbook)
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