January 8, 2010 Recharacterizing Representations and Pre-closing Obligations as Conditions

I’m looking for caselaw or commentary on the following issue relating to the parts of a mergers-and-acquisitions contract.
If a buyer wants to address in an M&A contract circumstances that are under the seller’s control—for example, whether the seller is in good standing under Delaware law—it would make sense to do so by means of a [...]

January 13, 2009 Using the ABA’s Deal Points Studies

One of the more useful perks of being a member of the American Bar Association is that you get access to the “Deal Points Studies” prepared by the Section of Business Law’s Committee on Mergers and Acquisitions.
There are various Deal Points Studies; I’ve recently consulted the 2008 Strategic Buyer/Public Target M&A Deal Points Study and [...]

November 11, 2008 The Structure of M&A Contracts—Materiality-Scrape Provisions

Wearing my “structure of M&A contracts” hat, this week I revisited a relatively recent addition to indemnification provisions in acquisition agreements—the “materiality scrape” provision. (What a charming moniker—it brings to mind scraping muck off the sole of one’s shoe.) In particular, I read a couple of useful articles, one by a team of lawyers at [...]

October 21, 2008 The Structure of M&A Contracts—When Are Representations Made?

Over the course of the past few years I’ve been working sporadically on a shortish (16,000 words) manuscript entitled “The Structure of M&A Contracts.” It discusses the function of the different categories of provisions in an M&A contract (representations, pre-closing obligations, conditions, indemnification, and termination provisions), the interplay between those categories of provisions, and the [...]