Lawyers
Paul, Weiss partners Roger Johnson and Nicole Kar were featured as expert commentators in the Lexis+ UK M&A Trends Report, a comprehensive analysis of public M&A activity and legal/regulatory developments in the UK in the first half of 2024. The report reviewed 69 transactions totaling £31.6 billion.
Global M&A Co-Chair Roger Johnson notes that proposed jurisdictional amendments to the Takeover Code would refocus its application to UK-registered and -listed companies and are likely to be welcomed by purchasers and significant shareholders of unlisted companies. He remains optimistic about the private equity M&A market going into the second half; while the volume of take-private transactions “has slightly reduced and is more comparable to H1 2022 levels, the higher deal values we are seeing reflect growing confidence in the P2P (public-to-private) market as well as easing financing conditions, driven partly by stabilizing inflation and interest rates,” Roger says.
Global Antitrust Co-Chair Nicole Kar notes that the CMA’s proposed reforms to the Phase 2 merger review process have satisfied many companies’ and practitioners’ wish lists. She also highlights the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act, which “adds yet another set of regulatory rules into the global cocktail for Big Tech and will provide even greater insight into deals by big tech firms.” And she says the “ECJ’s judgment in Illumina/Grail, which is eagerly awaited, will not abate the trend of countries changing their rules to enable review of below threshold deals.”
