Law Firm News

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Cowan, Liebowitz & Latman, P.C.

Mort Goldberg Receives Special ABA Chair's Award
The American Bar Association Section of Intellectual Property Law, at its Annual Meeting in San Francisco on August 11, 2007, gave a special Chair’s Award to Mort Goldberg “in honor and appreciation of his many contributions to the profession and his more than forty years of leadership, service and commitment to the Section.” The award was accompanied by the showing of a surprise this-is-your-life video.

Mort has served the ABA 20,000-lawyer Section as Section Chair, Delegate to the ABA House of Delegates, and Parliamentarian.

08-17-2007

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Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett, LLP

Simpson Thacher Represents Lehman Brothers in Establishing Global Merchant Banking Fund
Simpson Thacher represented Lehman Brothers in the establishment of Lehman Brothers Merchant Banking Partners IV. The Fund raised approximately $3.3 billion and will be focused on making control and significant minority stakes in small- to mid-cap companies. The Fund included approximately $1.2 billion dedicated to investments in Europe.

The Simpson Thacher team representing Lehman on the Fund included Glenn Sarno, Ian Schwartz, Justin Cooke, David Zabell, Christine Putek, Marc Messerli and Bryan Tollin (corporate); Brian Robbins and Jeanne Annarumma (ERISA); John Creed, Nancy Mehlman and Diane Gipstein (tax); and Mark Lab and Sean Cotton (Blue Sky and NASD).

08-17-2007

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Shearman & Sterling LLP

Goldman Sachs’ Whitehall Funds Complete their Public Tender Offer for Units of Italian Real Estate Investment Fund Berenice
The Whitehall Funds, a family of real estate funds promoted and managed by The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., completed their acquisition of approximately 91% of the units of Italian close-end real estate investment fund Berenice, managed by Pirelli & C. Real Estate Società di Gestione del Risparmio through a public tender offer for €913 per unit. The Rome office of Shearman & Sterling acted as Italian counsel to Whitehall in the transaction. The Berenice Fund holds a portfolio of real estate office properties located in major Italian cities. The transaction valued the Berenice Fund’s portfolio at approximately US$1.3 billion, including debt.

In one of the most contentious ever takeover battles in Italy, the Berenice Fund was the subject of three separate competing tender offers launched respectively by (i) a consortium formed by Morgan Stanley Special Situation Fund and Pirelli Real Estate & C. S.p.A. (the parent company of the Management Company and the real estate arm of the Pirelli Group), (ii) Whitehall and (iii) Merrill Lynch & Co. Inc. From the first bid of €540 per unit announced by Morgan Stanley and Pirelli on May 22, 2007, to the prevailing bid of €913 per unit announced by Whitehall on July 25, 2007, the three bidders raised the offer price a total of 11 times.

The transaction was the first ever tender offer for fund units in Italy and marked the first time that the rules on competing tender offers under the Italian Securities Act of 1998 had been applied in a practical case. Commentaries in the Italian press have referred to the deal as a model case study.

The Shearman & Sterling team included partner Domenico Fanuele (RO–CM/M&A), associates Tobia Croff (RO–CM/M&A), Fabio Fauceglia (RO–CM/M&A) and Emanuele Trucco (RO–CM/M&A), and trainee Francesco Liberatori (RO–CM/M&A).

08-17-2007

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Piper Rudnick, L.L.P.

Corporate Counsel Magazine ranks DLA Piper a Top Firm in Commercial Law and Contracts Litigation
Corporate Counsel magazine has ranked DLA Piper second in law firms serving the Fortune 250 in the category of commercial law and contracts litigation. The ranking is based on the results of Corporate Counsel’s sixth annual Who Represents America’s Biggest Companies survey.

Rankings were based on the rate the Fortune 250 used outside law firms in 2006 for commercial law and contracts litigation, corporate transactions, labor and employment litigation, and intellectual property litigation. Firms were chosen based on the number of times they appeared in the companies' public filings.

“We are thrilled Corporate Counsel has recognized DLA Piper for the outstanding service our commercial and contract litigation attorneys provide to clients across a variety of sectors,” said Robert Mathias, Joint Global Leader and U.S. Chair of DLA Piper’s Litigation practice. “This accomplishment reflects the continued success of our global practice, led by a deep team of trial lawyers who solve problems.”

DLA Piper attorneys provide commercial contract and litigation support for in-house legal teams, and also handle major projects and business-critical contracts for companies across sectors. The team of commercial lawyers works on deals ranging from straightforward agreements to complex multi-party projects spanning multiple jurisdictions.

08-17-2007

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Miller, Canfield, Paddock & Stone, P.L.C.

Miller Canfield Attorney Appointed President-Elect of Out-of-State Practitioners Division of Florida Bar Association
Allyn D. Kantor, a principal at the Ann Arbor office of Miller Canfield, has been elected president-elect of the Out-of-State Practitioners Division of the Florida Bar Association. The division consists of approximately 12,000 members of the Florida Bar Association who hold licenses to practice law in other states.

At Miller Canfield, Kantor’s practice includes complex civil litigation, health law, insurance matters, commercial real estate matters, employment litigation, securities broker liability, construction, environmental matters, and product liability.

He is a member of the American Bar Association, State Bar of Michigan, where he served on the Board of Commissioners, Federal Bar Association, Washtenaw County Bar Association, and American Arbitration Association and is an adjunct professor teaching Alternate Dispute Resolution at the University of Michigan Law School.

He received his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School, and a B.S. from Washington & Lee University where he majored in Business Administration.

He resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan

08-17-2007

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Jenner & Block LLP

Freeman and Malysiak Secure Seventh Circuit Victory in ERISA Class Action
Jenner & Block Partners Lee A. Freeman, Jr. and James T. Malysiak recently secured an appellate victory for a class of retirees who were denied a cost-of-living adjustment when they chose that their retirement benefits from Rohm and Haas be paid in a lump sum. In its opinion affirming summary judgment for the retirees, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit upheld a district court decision that found the terms of the company’s pension plan violated the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) because the adjustment was an “accrued benefit” as defined under ERISA.

The company’s pension plan provided participants with the option to receive either a monthly annuity payment or a one-time lump sum distribution equal to the accrued benefit of the monthly payments. According to the court’s opinion, the plan did not regard the cost-of-living adjustment as an “accrued benefit” necessary to include in its lump sum distributions of employee benefits. Rather, the plan unsuccessfully argued that the cost-of-living adjustment was “an enhancement that is awarded to annuitants, over and above the accrued benefit.”

In its analysis, the Seventh Circuit noted the court’s prior consideration of “a very similar issue” in Hickey v. Chicago Truck Drivers, Helpers and Warehouse Workers Union (7th Cir. 1992), where it held the cost-of-living adjustment to be part of the accrued benefit. The adjustment is “inseparably tied to the monthly retirement benefit as a means for maintaining the real value of that benefit,” the court stated in Hickey.

Emphasizing its determination in Hickey that the term “accrued benefit” has a statutory meaning that cannot be changed by simply labeling certain benefits as “supplementary benefits,” the court concluded that the Rohm and Haas pension plan violated ERISA when it deemed the cost-of-living adjustment an “enhancement” awarded to individuals choosing monthly annuity payments.

The plan “seeks to disguise a penalty exacted against lump sum recipients as a bonus afforded to annuitants,” the court said.

“If a defined benefit pension plan entitles an annuitant to a cost-of-living adjustment, it must also provide the [adjustment’s] actuarial equivalent to a participant who chooses instead to receive his pension in the form of a one-time lump sum distribution,” the court concluded.

08-17-2007

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Blank Rome LLP.

Blank Rome Becomes First Law Firm Accepted to Friends of Responsible Care® Program
Blank Rome is pleased to announce it has been accepted by the American Chemistry Council (ACC) to be a member of the Friends of Responsible Care® (FoRC) program. Blank Rome is the only law firm to date accepted into the FoRC program, in recognition of the Firm’s success in providing legal advice and counsel to chemical industry clients on matters including chemical and maritime facility security, hazardous materials transportation, environmental, financing, intellectual property, and international trade, to name a few.

Through the FoRC program, Blank Rome will help contribute to the environmental, health, safety, and security improvements in the business of chemistry.

The Friends of Responsible Care® program enables individuals or organizations that are not members of the ACC to demonstrate their support of Responsible Care. Responsible Care is a global chemical industry performance initiative that is implemented in the United States through the ACC and helps America’s leading chemical companies go above and beyond government requirements and openly communicate their results to the public. Since its inception in 1988, the Responsible Care program has resulted in reduced environmental releases of 78 percent and an employee safety record that is more than five times safer than the average of the U.S. manufacturing sector.

08-17-2007

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