In 1996, Staples proposed a merger with Office Depot to the FTC and Department of Justice.1 The FTC, however, opposed the merger on the grounds that it “would violate federal antitrust laws by substantially reducing competition in the retail sale of office supply superstores in various markets throughout the country where each firm directly competes…
Tag: Regulatory
As Apple Pay Is Set to Launch, Will It Become the Apple of CFPB’s Eye?
As Apple looks to replace the wallet with its new Apple Pay feature, is the technology giant unwittingly exposing itself to regulation from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)? Apple Pay allows iPhone users to store their credit and debit cards on their phones and pay for purchases using their phones as well—essentially making plastic…
Despite Outstanding Growth Prospects, Alibaba’s IPO Fraught with Risk
Although few retail investors in the United States have even heard of Chinese e-commerce behemoth Alibaba, anticipation on Wall Street this week for the company’s forthcoming I.P.O. is palpable.1 Touted by many as a uniquely positioned hybrid of eBay, Amazon, and Google, the company announced its plans earlier this year to go public in New…
Online Gambling in the United States
Gambling, and especially online gaming, in the United States has a long and complicated past. Recently, three states, Nevada, Delaware, and New Jersey, have passed legislation allowing for online gambling within their state borders. This blog post reviews a history of online gaming in the United States, examines recent areas of legalization for online…
Divergent Incentives in Secondary Buyout Transactions Cause Limited Partners to Shoulder Downside Risk Alone
Over the past year secondary buyout transactions have become the increasingly common move of primary private equity fund managers seeking to exit their portfolio company investments in Europe and the United States. Secondary buyouts, also referred to colloquially as “pass the parcel” deals, occur when one private equity firm sells its stake in a portfolio…
Lenovo’s Deals with IBM and Google Likely to Survive CFIUS Review
The Chinese leading PC maker, Lenovo, has been ambitiously using acquisitions to fuel its growth since the beginning of this year. The company announced two deals valued at over $5 billion, total, in January, both with U.S. firms. On January 23, 2014, Lenovo entered into an agreement with IBM to acquire the latter’s x86 Server…
Crowdfunding’s Intermediaries’ Obligation to Educate
When President Barack Obama signed the JOBS Act into law on April 5, 2012, Section 3(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 was amended to include a new definition for “funding portal.”1 Funding portals, along with brokers, are the lucky players through which all crowdfunding transactions must be conducted.2 But just how lucky are…
It May Be Time to Revisit Institutional Shareholder Activism
Institutional shareholder activism has often been viewed as a positive corporate governance tool to ameliorate shareholder collective action problems and keep management teams and boards of directors in check, particularly for large public companies with a widely dispersed group of shareholders. Typically, an activist shareholder (ranging from large individual stockholders to institutional investors) will use…
Did You Hear That Tweet, Wall Street?
Almost every user of social media like Facebook and Twitter knows that information they post online will be read by someone else, and might even be repeated to others. But what if the social media user was someone in the financial industry or a giant corporation announcing a strategic move or product development, and the…
There Is Still Hope for Bitcoin
Mt. Gox has recently shut down and filed for bankruptcy, claiming that it has an outstanding debt of $63.6 million.1 The company, which was the largest Bitcoin exchange, disclosed that it had lost 850,000 units of Bitcoin, including 750,000 that belonged to customers.2 That amount is worth about $477 million, based on current exchange rates,…