Free Speech, Due Process and Trial by Jury
This week, the Texas Supreme Court is handling a business v. business case that could either reinstate one of the largest punitive damage verdicts in the court's history or be the death of exemplary damages in many types of civil disputes in Texas. It features some of the best lawyers in Texas, including two former chief justices. The Texas Lawbook has details.
An appellate court ruled Thursday that the arbitrability of a $15 million legal dispute between Houston-based Apache Corp. and Fort Worth-based Wagner Oil Company will have to be debated in front of an arbitrator in Houston, not a trial court in Fort Worth as WOC had hoped.
Skyview is a Los Angeles-based private equity firm that recently opened a new office in Dallas, one of several PE firms that have set up shop in Texas. The Lawbook's Claire Poole had a chance to chat with Darryl Smith, who heads the new Texas outpost, about the company’s market outlook and what their presence might mean for lawyers in the Lone Star State.
Federal prosecutors in Dallas announced Wednesday that they have charged AriseBank CEO Jared Rice Sr. with multiple counts of fraud related to a North Texas cryptocurrency scheme that used former heavy weight boxing champion Evander Holyfield as a spokesman.
Heading into the thick of the holiday season, as well as the year's end, two separate trends may be emerging: first, middle market deals are beginning to thin; second, PE is gaining influence fast enough to account for half the M&A market in the next five years. The Lawbook's Claire Poole explains in her weekly Corporate Deal Tracker Roundup.
It started with a Chapter 11 bankruptcy tied to an Austin affiliate of the Forest Park hospital. It ended with a revelation in a separate case in Dallas of multiple potentially illegal transfers of millions of dollars during the bankruptcy proceeding. The bankruptcy case has now reopened to determine whether a Dallas private equity manager, the recipient of these millions, should be held in contempt and hit with six-figure sanctions. The Lawbook has the story.
Texas-based companies are facing fewer and fewer lawsuits and the lawsuits they are facing are costing them less, according to a new survey of corporate general counsel by Norton Rose Fulbright. But corporate in-house counsel in the state are increasingly worried about cybersecurity attacks and data breaches. The Texas Lawbook has the details.
Corporate bankruptcy lawyer Eric Seitz is in El Paso representing a Honduran father who fled murderous gangs with his teenaged sister who threatened to kill them and is seeking asylum. The need for lawyers at the border is still there and The Texas Lawbook has details.
It’s been a busy time for mergers and acquisitions in Texas, particularly in the oil and gas industry. And over the last month or so, two Houston lawyers each handled three large transactions that together were worth more than $21 billion. The lawyers who put those deals together talked to The Lawbook's Claire Poole about how those deals came about.
In the latest of a wave of billion-dollar-plus mergers between oil and gas producers, Denver-based Cimarex Energy Co. announced Monday that it agreed to buy crosstown company Resolute Energy Corp. for $1.6 billion, including debt. Texas lawyers from Akin Gump were involved, and The Lawbook's Claire Poole has those details.
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