Harvard Convenes the M&A Roundtable

The Harvard Law School Program on Corporate Governance convened its Mergers & Acquisitions Roundtable last Wednesday, May 22. The M&A Roundtable brought leading experts in the M&A field from the judiciary, legal practice, the academy, investment banking, proxy advising and soliciting, and the investor community. The topics of discussion and participants in the event are set out below.

The morning session of the M&A Roundtable focused on issues concerning acquisitions, both friendly and hostile. Among the issues discussed were management buyouts and private equity buyouts; deal-protection terms and go-shop provisions; the proliferation of M&A litigation; forum shopping and forum selection and arbitration clauses; reform of Section 13(d); and poison pills and other takeover defenses.

The afternoon session of the M&A Roundtable focused on hedge fund activism and shareholder activism more generally. Among the issues discussed were compensation for dissident directors, proxy advisors, universal ballots, and the short-term and long-term effects of shareholder activism.

The participants in the M&A Roundtable included:

William D. Anderson, Jr., Managing Director, Goldman, Sachs & Co.

Stephen F. Arcano, Partner, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom LLP

Joseph Bachelder, Special Counsel, McCarter & English, LLP

Michael J. Barry, Partner, Grant and Eisenhofer P.A.

Lucian Bebchuk, William J. Friedman and Alicia Townsend Friedman Professor of Law, Economics, and Finance, Harvard Law School

Allison Bennington, Partner and General Counsel, ValueAct Capital

Alon Brav, Professor, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University

Dan Burch, Chairman & CEO, MacKenzie Partners, Inc.

Dick Cavanagh, Executive Director, BlackRock Mutual Funds

Chris Cernich, Executive Director of M&A and Contests, ISS

Warren Chen, Managing Director, M&A and Contests, Glass, Lewis & Co.

Joseph Chi, Co-Head of Portfolio Management, Dimensional Fund Advisors

Daniel P. Chisholm, Vice President and Associate General Counsel, Fidelity

Rick Climan, Partner, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP

John C. Coates, IV, John F. Cogan, Jr. Professor of Law and Economics, Harvard Law School

Creighton Condon, Senior Partner, Shearman & Sterling LLP

Arthur B. Crozier, Chairman, Innisfree M&A

William Curbow, Partner, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP

Scott Davis, Partner, Mayer Brown LLP

Stephen Davis, Associate Director and Senior Fellow, Programs on Corporate Governance and Institutional Investors, Harvard Law School

Sara Elinson, Principal, Deloitte Financial Advisory Services LLP

Luca Enriques, Nomura Visiting Professor of International Financial Systems, Harvard Law School

Gregg Feinstein, Managing Director and Co-Head of M&A, Houlihan Lokey

Allen Ferrell, Greenfield Professor of Securities Law, Harvard Law School

William J. Forgione, Senior Managing Director and General Counsel, TIAA-CREF

Stephen Fraidin, Partner, Kirkland & Ellis LLP

Jesse Fried, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Eduardo Gallardo, Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP

Mark D. Gerstein, Partner, Latham & Watkins LLP

Larry Hamdan, Executive Chairman of Global M&A, Barclays Capital

Scott Hirst, Associate Director, Program on Institutional Investors, Harvard Law School

Suzanne Hopgood, Corporate Governance Consultant, Connecticut Retirement and Pension Fund Trusts

Jack B. Jacobs, Justice, Supreme Court of Delaware

Gaurav Jetley, Vice President, Analysis Group

Roy Katzovicz, Chief Legal Officer, Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P.

Ethan Klingsberg, Partner, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP

Reinier Kraakman, Ezra Ripley Thayer Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Peter Krupp, Partner, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher and Flom LLP

Rakhi Kumar, Vice President, Corporate Governance, State Street Global Advisors

James Kwak, Associate Professor of Law, University of Connecticut School of Law

J. Travis Laster, Vice Chancellor, Court of Chancery, State of Delaware

Ted Mirvis, Partner, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz

Manish K. Mital, General Counsel, Managing Principal, Halcyon Asset Management LLC

James C. Morphy, Partner, Sullivan & Cromwell LLP

Toby Myerson, Partner, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP

Charles Penner, Partner & Chief Legal Officer, JANA Partners LLC

Brian Quinn, Associate Professor of Law, Boston College

Brandon J. Rees, Acting Director, AFL- CIO

Paul K. Rowe, Partner, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz

Matthew Schoenfeld, Special Situations Group, Morgan Stanley

Holger Spamann, Assistant Professor, Harvard Law School

Leo E. Strine, Jr., Chancellor, Court of Chancery, State of Delaware

Guhan Subramanian, Joseph Flom Professor of Law and Business, Harvard Law School; Douglas Weaver Professor of Business Law, Harvard Business School

Greg Taxin, Managing Director, Clinton Group, Inc.

Andrea Tinianow, Vice President & Assistant General Counsel, Corporation Service Company

L. Adel Turki, Senior Vice President, Cornerstone Research

Dieter Waizenegger, Executive Director, CtW Investment Group

Charles C.Y. Wang, Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School

Marc Weingarten, Partner, Schulte, Roth & Zabel LLP

Marc Williams, Partner, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP

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One Comment

  1. Mark Cobb Law Group
    Posted Tuesday, May 28, 2013 at 10:27 am | Permalink

    What a terrific line-up of speakers! Are any of the round table disccusions available for view on the internet–particularly the morning sessions regarding M&A? Thank you.