Nippon Steel said Thursday that its proposed $14.9 billion acquisition of Pennsylvania-based U.S. Steel is in line with President Donald Trump's goals, as the Japanese steelmaker dropped hints of its strategy to get the new administration to approve the deal. 
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Mergers & Acquisitions
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 9, 2025 Law360 iOS App Law360 Android App Follow Law360 on Facebook Follow Law360 on LinkedIn Follow Law360 on Twitter

TOP NEWS

Nippon Says US Steel Deal Aligns With Trump Goals

By Al Barbarino

Nippon Steel said Thursday that its proposed $14.9 billion acquisition of Pennsylvania-based U.S. Steel is in line with President Donald Trump's goals, as the Japanese steelmaker dropped hints of its strategy to get the new administration to approve the deal. 

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Kirkland Guiding TPG On $2.2B Altus Power Purchase

By Al Barbarino

Kirkland & Ellis LLP-advised TPG has agreed to purchase Latham & Watkins LLP-guided Altus Power in a deal that values the Stamford, Connecticut-based solar energy provider at approximately $2.2 billion, including debt, Altus said in a Thursday statement.

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Warner Music Nabs Top Stake In Owner Of Adele Song Rights

By Al Barbarino

Warner Music Group Corp. said Thursday it has acquired a controlling stake in Tempo Music Investments from Providence Equity Partners, in a reported $450 million deal that gives Warner Music the rights to songs recorded by Adele, Bruno Mars and other popular artists. 

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Weil Guides BCI's £1B Offer For Luxembourg Investor

By Najiyya Budaly

Canadian asset manager British Columbia Investment Management Corp. plans to take investor BBGI Global Infrastructure SA of Luxembourg private in a cash deal worth £1 billion ($1.24 billion), the companies said Thursday.

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Law360 Seeks Members For Its 2025 Editorial Boards

Law360 is looking for avid readers of our publications to serve as members of our 2025 editorial advisory boards.

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POLICY

FTC GOP Focusing On Merger 'Friction,' AI, 'Censorship'

By Bryan Koenig

Federal Trade Commission Republicans are beginning to signal their Trump-era policies, including a friendlier approach to mergers with fewer challenges based on "weak or factually unsupported theories," a more hands-off take on artificial intelligence, and a heavy emphasis on combating alleged online censorship of conservatives.

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MERGER REVIEW

UnitedHealth Drops Bid To Toss Home Health Deal Challenge

By Matthew Perlman

UnitedHealth Group and home health and hospice giant Amedisys Inc. dropped their bid to toss a case challenging their $3.3 billion merger after enforcers detailed the home health and hospice markets they allege will be hurt by the deal.

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SHAREHOLDER ACTIVISM

Honeywell To Split Into 3 Entities After Activist Pressure

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Industrial conglomerate Honeywell, advised by Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP, on Thursday unveiled plans to fully separate its automation and aerospace technology businesses, which when paired with the company's previously announced plan to spin off its advanced materials business, will result in three separate publicly traded companies.

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DEALS

Globus Medical Buys Device-Maker Nevro In $250M Deal

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Musculoskeletal solutions company Globus Medical, advised by Wyrick Robbins Yates & Ponton LLP, on Thursday announced plans to buy Latham & Watkins LLP-led medical device company Nevro Corp. in an all-cash deal with an equity value of roughly $250 million.

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Deals Rumor Mill

Meta Eyes Texas Skies, Another Crypto IPO, And More Rumors

By Tom Zanki

Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc. is considering relocating its legal residence to Texas, while cryptocurrency exchange Bullish is moving forward on an initial public offering, and Unilever PLC is eyeing New York as a listing destination for its ice cream business.

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LITIGATION

Earthlink Investors' Attys Score $28M In Merger Suit

By Nadia Dreid

The attorneys who helped Earthlink investors score an $85 million settlement with the company after they said they were tricked into approving a $1.1 billion merger with a failing telecommunications company will be walking away with almost $28 million for their trouble.

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Jeld-Wen Appealing Forced Factory Sale To 4th Circ., Again

By Bryan Koenig

Jeld-Wen Inc. is taking another trip to the Fourth Circuit to fight an order forcing it to sell a door skin factory, filing a notice of appeal Thursday after a Virginia federal judge said a $115 million price is fair.

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Filing Claims 'Secret Lockout' Led To Conn. Trial Firm Schism

By Emily Sawicki

One of the 50-50 partners litigating the dramatic breakup of Connecticut Trial Firm LLC, a personal injury firm known for high-dollar verdicts, has accused his onetime partner of having "plotted a secret lockout" to remove him from the firm, according to a revised derivative complaint filed in Connecticut state court.

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BANKRUPTCY

Judge OKs 'Unorthodox' Deal To Fund Pa. Hospitals In Ch. 11

By Clara Geoghegan

Bankrupt hospital operator Prospect Medical has agreed to put its four Philadelphia-area hospitals under receivership for the next 30 days while it hammers out a sale as part of a funding arrangement that a Texas bankruptcy judge on Thursday called "unorthodox."

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EXPERT ANALYSIS

How FTC Consumer Protection May Fare Under Reg Freeze

Attorneys at Crowell & Moring consider how President Donald Trump's executive order directing agencies to freeze all pending rulemaking activity may frustrate any Federal Trade Commission efforts to change or eliminate rules that made it across the finish line before the inauguration.

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Critical Steps For Navigating Intensified OFAC Enforcement

The largely overlooked SkyGeek settlement from the end of 2024 heralds the arrival of the Office of Foreign Assets Control's long anticipated enhanced enforcement posture and clearly demonstrates the sanctions-compliance benefits of immediately responding to blocked payments, says Jeremy Paner at Hughes Hubbard.

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AI Will Soon Transform The E-Discovery Industrial Complex

Todd Itami at Covington discusses how generative artificial intelligence will reshape the current e-discovery paradigm, replacing the blunt instrument of data handling with a laser scalpel of fully integrated enterprise solutions — after first making e-discovery processes technically and legally harder.

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LEGAL INDUSTRY

BigLaw Firms Saw Double-Digit Profit Growth In 2024

By Aebra Coe

Last year was "one of the strongest years on record" for U.S. law firm financial results, according to Citi Global Wealth at Work Law Firm Group head Gretta Rusanow, with a survey by the bank of mostly large law firms showing a 16.6% increase in profits and a 12.3% increase in revenue over 2023.

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Legal Sector Gains 900 Jobs In January Amid Data Revisions

By Xiumei Dong

The U.S. legal sector started the year with a modest boost, adding 900 jobs in January, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released Friday following the agency's annual employment data revision that also lifted earlier job figures from the past year. 

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Dentons US Names Capital Markets Leader Managing Partner

By Anna Sanders

Dentons tapped capital markets partner and regulatory team leader John Holahan to serve as U.S. managing partner, the firm announced Friday.

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Injury Attys In Hot Water Over Possible AI-Hallucinated Cites

By Lauren Berg

Morgan & Morgan PA and the Goody Law Group on Friday withdrew pretrial motions in a personal injury lawsuit against Walmart over an allegedly defective hoverboard after a Florida federal court ordered the firms to explain why the filings contained what appears to be case law hallucinated by generative artificial intelligence.

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Plaintiffs Lawyers Swarm Los Angeles Post-Fires

By Brandon Lowrey

A deadly wildfire may be among the first covered by a new state fund that reimburses at-fault utility companies. This could mean billions of dollars for plaintiffs lawyers, and, if past fires are any indication, frustration and confusion for some victims.

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4th Circ. Says LeClairRyan Founder May Duck Tax Liability

By Jack Karp

Defunct law firm LeClairRyan PLLC's operating agreement did not bar founder Gary LeClair from jumping ship in time to potentially dodge massive tax bills tied to the firm's collapse, the Fourth Circuit ruled Friday.

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Goldstein's Pro Se Filing Irks Feds Amid Murky Atty Situation

By Elliot Weld

Prosecutors have asked a Maryland federal judge to strike a pro se motion from Tom Goldstein in his tax evasion case, saying the U.S. Supreme Court attorney and SCOTUSblog publisher shouldn't be allowed to personally make arguments to the court when he is represented by several experienced lawyers.

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2nd Circ. Orders In-House Counsel Docs In Grand Jury Case

By Parker Quinlan

The Second Circuit on Friday ruled that an in-house attorney for a publicly traded company under federal investigation in New York must turn over communications as part of a grand jury investigation under the crime-fraud exception to attorney-client privilege.

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Analysis

Del.'s Quiet Ambition To Tweak Chancery, Stem Feared DExit

By Jeff Montgomery

Anxious over claims that stockholder-tilted decisions by Delaware's Court of Chancery will trigger more companies to follow Tesla, SpaceX, Meta and Dropbox to other states, Delaware policymakers are taking a hard look at the venerable business court's processes, hoping to slow a feared rush to DExit.

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DC Prosecutor Axed Jan. 6 Case Against Client, Group Says

By Lauren Berg

A legal group filed a bar complaint in Missouri Thursday against President Donald Trump's top prosecutor in Washington, D.C., saying the attorney violated rules of professional conduct when, in his new government role, he moved to dismiss charges related to the U.S. Capitol attack against his own client.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Aebra Coe and Kevin Penton

Lawyers from Latham & Watkins LLP and Proskauer Rose LLP kick off this week's Law360 Legal Lions, with a jury decision ending a $500 million antitrust lawsuit against their clients, U.S. Soccer and Major League Soccer.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

General counsel will be scrutinizing their companies' DEI policies after U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi directed the U.S. Department of Justice to probe and penalize illegal diversity policies in the private and public sectors. Outside the DOJ, legal professionals, including in-house attorneys, reported high job satisfaction in a recent survey, likely leading to lower turnover. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.​

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UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Laura Stewart Liberty

This past week in London has seen Investec Bank PLC sue two diamond tycoons, London florist Nikki Tibbles file a claim against an "imitator company," a direct descendant of the Cartier family launch a claim, and a Coronation Street actor hit footballer Joe Bunney with a defamation claim. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.

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Promo that reads 2024 Practice Groups of the Year Promo that reads Law360 Pulse In-House Counsel Satisfaction Survey

LAW FIRMS IN TODAY'S NEWS

A&O Shearman

Addleshaw Goddard

Aeton Law Partners

Ashurst LLP

Bernstein Litowitz

Bird & Bird

Bivonas Law LLP

Bryan Cave

Cahill Gordon

Carney Bates

Carpmaels & Ransford

Claggett & Sykes

Clyde & Co

Connecticut Trial Firm LLC

Continental PLLC

Covington & Burling

Crowell & Moring

Crowley Fleck

DLA Piper

Dentons

Elvinger, Hoss & Prussen

Fieldfisher

Fox Williams

Gallagher Evelius

Gentry Locke

Gibson Dunn

Goody Law Group

Guerra LLP

Guttman Buschner

Herbert Smith Freehills

Hicks Johnson

Hill Dickinson

Holland & Knight

Hueston Hennigan

Hughes Hubbard

Hunton Andrews

Irwin Mitchell

Johnson Fistel

Jones Day

Keoghs LLP

Kirkland & Ellis

Kramon & Graham

Kressin Meador

Latham & Watkins

Lauro & Singer

Lerch Early

Lewis Silkin

McCoy Leavitt

McGuireWoods

Morgan & Morgan

Morgan Lewis

Morvillo Abramowitz

Munger Tolles

Murphy Anderson PLLC

Norton Rose

Orrick Herrington

Paul Weiss

Penningtons Manches

Proskauer Rose

Quinn Emanuel

RBG Legal Services Ltd.

RWK Goodman

Reed Smith

Reynolds Porter

Robbins Geller

Ropes & Gray

Sheppard Mullin

Sidley Austin

Simmons & Simmons

Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP

Skadden Arps

Stanfield Bechtel

Stevens & Bolton

Tavenner & Beran PLC

Theodora Oringher

Umberg & Zipser

Walker Morris LLP

Weil Gotshal

Willenken LLP

WilmerHale

Withersworldwide

Wright Lindsey

Wyrick Robbins

COMPANIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

AccuWeather Inc.

Altus Power Inc.

Amazon.com Inc.

Amedisys Inc.

American Airlines Group Inc.

American Arbitration Association

American Bar Association

American Federation of Government Employees

American Federation of State County & Municipal Employees

Amgen Inc.

Argo Group International Holdings Ltd.

Atos SE

Barclays PLC

Ben & Jerry's Homemade Inc.

Bibby Financial Services Ltd.

Block.one LLC

Bloomberg LP

Blue Cross Blue Shield Association

Bubba Gump Shrimp Co.

California Earthquake Authority

Canon Inc.

Cartier SA

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc.

CoinDesk LLC

Credit Suisse Group AG

Databricks Inc.

Democracy Forward Foundation

Digital Currency Group Inc.

EarthLink Inc.

Elliott Investment Management LP

Exxon Mobil Corp.

FTI Consulting Inc.

Fordham University

Globant SA

Globus Medical Inc.

Google LLC

Hatch Henderson Fivel LLC

Horizon Therapeutics PLC

Howden Broking Group Ltd.

IDEX Corp.

Instagram Inc.

Investec PLC

JELD-WEN Inc.

Jefferies Financial Group Inc.

Jetson Electric Bikes LLC

LHC Group Inc.

LexisNexis Legal & Professional

LinkedIn Corp.

London Stock Exchange Group PLC

Longford Capital Management LP

Los Angeles Department of Water and Power

MGA Entertainment Inc.

Major League Soccer LLC

Major Lindsey & Africa LLC

McKinsey & Co. Inc.

Mediterranean Shipping Co. SA

Meta Platforms Inc.

Michigan State University

Moelis & Co.

NICE Ltd.

NICE inContact

National Association of Government Employees

Netflix Inc.

Neurocrine Biosciences Inc.

Nevro Corp.

New York Law School

Option Care Health Inc.

PG&E Corp.

Palantir Technologies Inc.

Pershing Square Capital Management LP

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP

Prospect Medical Holdings Inc.

Providence Equity Partners LLC

Public Citizen Inc.

Purdue Pharma LP

RBC Capital Markets

RELX PLC

Robert Half Inc.

Rutter's Holdings Inc.

SoftBank Group Corp.

Southern California Edison Co.

Space Exploration Technologies Corp.

State Bar of California

Station Casinos LLC

Steves & Sons Inc.

TUI AG

Tempur Sealy International Inc.

Tesla Inc.

The Florida Bar

The PNC Financial Services Group Inc.

Toyota Motor Corp.

TripAdvisor Inc.

Twitter Inc.

Unilever PLC

United Policyholders

United Steelworkers

UnitedHealth Group Inc.

UnitedLex Corp.

University of Virginia

Walmart Inc.

Warner Music Group Corp.

Wells Fargo & Co.

Windstream Holdings Inc.

GOVERNMENT AGENCIES IN TODAY'S NEWS

Bureau of Labor Statistics

Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

Delaware Court of Chancery

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

Federal Communications Commission

Federal Trade Commission

Illinois Attorney General's Office

Information Commissioner's Office

Maryland Attorney General's Office

National Labor Relations Board

New York Attorney General's Office

Office of Foreign Assets Control

Office of the Federal Register

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

U.S. Army

U.S. Attorney's Office

U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland

U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit

U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit

U.S. Department of Commerce

U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. Department of Labor

U.S. Department of the Treasury

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia

U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Arkansas

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania

U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office

U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission

U.S. Supreme Court

UK High Court

United States District Court for the District of Wyoming