Over the years I’ve written about materiality a number of times. The discussion in MSCD represents my most recent take, but I’m revisiting the subject for purposes of my forthcoming booklet on the structure of M&A contracts. While finalizing the booklet—a task that has taken me away from blogging—I’ve found myself considering an issue that I haven’t [...]
Last June, Hexion Specialty Chemicals announced that it was walking from its $10.6 billion acquisition of Huntsman Corp. on the grounds that the capital structure for the combined entity was no longer viable and would render it insolvent. Hexion filed suit in Delaware, and on September 29, 2008, Vice Chancellor Lamb issued his opinion. One [...]
I’ve written at inordinate length about how MAC provisions are used in contracts and how MAC is defined. But I don’t much get into whether, and how, MAC provisions are actually invoked in deals, unless issues of contract language come into play. For a useful discussion of such policy issues, see this DealBook story by [...]
In my tireless quest to master all things related to materiality, I recently asked myself what the heck material breach means. I suspect that if you were to ask that question to a random sample of lawyers and business people, you’d mostly get a lot of hemming and hawing. By extrapolating from my analyses of [...]
One of the consequences of my having written articles on “material adverse change” provisions is that I get calls from reporters asking for insightful observations about any MAC dispute that makes the news. This time, it’s the lawsuit filed by Sallie Mae against a buyout group led by J.C. Flowers. Click here to see the [...]
The Sept.–Oct. 2007 issue of “Deal Lawyers” contains my article “What does ‘Material’ Mean.” Click here for a copy of the entire issue. This article represents a boiled-down version of my recent New York Law Journal article on the subject. But thanks to valuable input from two readers of this blog, I’ve made some useful [...]
A reader in Italy asked me about a short article that he had seen on www.breakingviews.com. I wasn’t familiar with this site, but it describes itself as “the leading international source of online financial commentary.” (Click here to go to the article; you’ll need to subscribe, or at least register for a free trial.) The [...]
