Wells Fargo Co., one of the largest banks in the United States, has been punished by multiple government actors for its allegedly deceptive banking practices dating back to 2011.1 From 2011 to 2015, the bank’s employees opened roughly 1.5 million new bank accounts and applied for 565,000 credit card accounts that may not have been…
Category: Blog Articles
Avoiding an IPO: Spotify’s Unique NYSE Entrance
Startup unicorns, defined as those nascent companies with valuations greater than $1 billion, are increasingly undergoing IPOs and listing on national exchanges.1 Following the high-profile failures of the Snap2 and Blue Apron3 offerings, the next unicorns to turn public are being intensely scrutinized. At the end of 2017, digital music giant Spotify announced that it…
The IP of IPAs: The Trademark Litigation of the Craft Brewing Industry
On the same day that he sued MolsonCoors Brewing Company (“MCBC”), Stone Brewing Co-Founder and Executive Chairman Greg Koch released a video on Stone’s YouTube channel explaining the lawsuit. “They know they can’t buy Stone. They can obfuscate, they can co-opt our brand and our good name.”1 The lawsuit states claims against MCBC for federal…
PEM Entities v. Levin, Does a Circuit Split Really Matter? – Analyzing Competing Approaches to Debt-to-Equity Recharacterizations in Chapter 11.
Corporate reorganizations through bankruptcy can be a messy business. When the parties who have loaned money in an attempt to rescue a company have multiple interconnected relationships, it can become even messier and the job faced by bankruptcy courts can be daunting. That is why PEM Entities v. Levin, which was granted certiorari in 2017 only…
Help or a Hindrance: Long-running Debate over Dual-class Stock Continues
It’s a question almost as old as the stock market: should public corporations be able to use a dual-class share structure that preserves a key shareholder’s influence. A number of well-known companies including Ford Motor Company, Facebook and News Corp. maintain dual-class structures that grant outsized voting power to one person or a small number…
The XFL: A Single Entity on its Second Life
In January, Vince McMahon, Chairman and CEO of the popular World Wrestling Entertainment, announced that he would be recreating the XFL, a professional football league that will begin competing during the offseason of the National Football League (NFL) in 2020.1 This will be McMahon’s second crack at the XFL; his first attempt, in 2001, collapsed…
A Tasty Tax Exclusion for Silicon Valley Employees
In 1999, Google’s forty employees hosted a cook off to see who would be the future first chef of their company’s kitchen.1 After sampling 25 different cooks, the office ultimately named Charlie Ayers the winner of the competition after trying his eclectic and worldly selection.2 Google’s early employees and Ayers could hardly imagine the gourmet…
Lawsuits Against Pfizer Dismissed
Pfizer Inc. is one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies and is one of the thirty companies used to calculate the Dow Jones Industrial Average. In a class action, over one thousand lawsuits have been filed against Pfizer, claiming that certain testosterone replacement drugs increase the risk of heart attacks and strokes.1 Testosterone replacement…
Fujifilm Suit; Activist Hedge Fund Concerns
In early February, activist hedge fund investor Darwin Deason filed a lawsuit against the well-known company Xerox1 The basis of the lawsuit stems from Xerox’s proposed merger with Fujifilm, which would lead to the creation of a new entity called, Fuji Xerox, and give Fujifilm a 50.1% stake in the created entity.2. Deason filed the…
Illegal Motion: The Breach of Contract Lawsuit over the Relocation of the Los Angeles Rams
When Stan Kroenke bought a majority share of the St. Louis Rams in 2010, he did so while making an assurance that he was going to do everything he could to keep the Rams in St. Louis.1 And yet, less than six years after taking control, Kroenke and the Rams got league approval to move…