Plains All American to Acquire 55% of EPIC Pipeline for $1.57B
Latham, V&E and Akin advised on the deal which will see Diamondback and Kinetik Energy exit their ownership stake in the strategic 800-mile crude oil pipeline.
CDT Roundup: Big Start, Quiet Finish For Deal Week Going into Holiday
The week ending Aug. 30 saw 10 deals with a reported value of $6.6 billion. That's a significant drop from the prior week's 23 deals for $15.2 billion. We could write that off as a holiday week problem, but last year at this time, we saw 13 deals for $20.6 billion. The week began strong enough with the announcement of a $3.1 billion acquisition in the Permian and AT&T's $23 billion licensing agreement with EchoStar, but M&A simply dwindled over the rest of the week. That and more in this week's CDT Roundup.
Dynamic Energy Deal Duo: Catching up with Skadden’s Emery Choi and Mingda Zhao
Skadden’s Houston M&A group recently welcomed veteran oil and gas partners Emery Choi and Mingda Zhao, reuniting them with prominent Texas dealmaker Steve Gill. Together, Choi and Zhao bring years of experience steering energy sector clients through high-stakes M&A, joint ventures and cross-border investments. Their record includes leading transactions such as billion-dollar-plus deals for Continental Resources, Marathon Oil and Occidental Petroleum. The duo recently shared with The Texas Lawbook their insights on today’s energy M&A landscape, shifting capital trends and the evolving deal dynamics shaping the current market.
Newly Retired U.S. Judge Lynn Will Mediate Huge Boy Scouts Insurance Dispute
Barbara M.G. Lynn, the recently retired judge for the Northern District of Texas, has been appointed as mediator in an insurance dispute involving the Boy Scouts of America that the presiding judge in the matter called “the mother of all coverage cases.”
U.S. Judge Jane Boyle Takes Senior Status
U.S. District Judge Jane Boyle of the Northern District of Texas announced Thursday that she is taking senior status effective Oct. 1. Judge Boyle, a former state and federal prosecutor who has served on the federal bench for more than 21 years, is the second federal judge in Dallas to take senior status this month.
Harvest Midstream Strikes $1B Deal for MPLX Gas Assets in Rockies
Harvest Midstream is making a $1 billion bet on the Rockies, agreeing to acquire natural gas gathering and processing assets from Ohio-based MPLX. The deal expands Houston-based Harvest’s footprint in Wyoming, Utah and Colorado with 1,500 miles of pipelines and 845 million cubic feet per day of processing capacity, underscoring the private midstream company’s push for scale in natural gas. A Texas team from Kirkland & Ellis advised Harvest on the transaction.
Asked & Answered with Gibson Dunn’s Trey Cox: Pizza, Pipelines and a Hot Streak
Asked & Answered is a new standing feature The Texas Lawbook will bring readers every other week, highlighting the work of leading Texas lawyers and offering insight into their lives outside the courtroom. In this edition, we sit down with Trey Cox, co-chair of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s global litigation practice group and co-partner in charge of its Dallas office.
Cox has won some big verdicts recently and, with another trial on his calendar in October, he plans to keep the momentum going.
Freeman Seeks Dismissal of GWG Bondholders’ RICO Suit
Elizabeth Freeman and her law firm filed the 54-page dismissal motion, which includes more than 1,000 pages of exhibits, on Tuesday. The bondholders had filed suit in June, alleging she was among a group of individuals working “together to prey upon distressed entities for their own financial gain.”
AT&T to Acquire EchoStar Wireless Licenses for $23B
The deal helps resolve regulatory pressures on EchoStar to use or lose federal licensing in the mid-band and low-band spectrum. The deal was handled in-house for AT&T with help from Sullivan & Cromwell and Arnold & Porter.
Litigation Roundup: Dallas Firm Readies for Airline Fatality Trial
In this edition of Litigation Roundup, Baker Botts is hired by Tesla to defend against patent infringement claims in the Eastern District of Texas, jury selection is underway in an airline crash fatality suit that a Dallas law firm is taking to trial in Washington State, and a recent appellate ruling from Eastland could have a broad impact in personal injury cases.