We were grateful that about 200 of you participated in Cleary Gottlieb’s fifth annual M&A, Antitrust, and the Board Room conference in San Francisco, hosted and co-sponsored by our friends at UC Berkeley School of Law, as well as sponsors Abernathy MacGregor, Finsbury, Gladstone Place Partners, Joele Frank, MacKenzie Partners, and Okapi Partners, and chaired by Cleary partner Ethan Klingsberg and Berkeley Professor Steven Davidoff Solomon.

The day featured:

  • A lively discussion among some of the senior advisors involved in the Redstone family’s recent legal battle with CBS over the interplay between fiduciary duties and the workings of their dual class stock structure, including Jonathan Knee, a Senior Advisor at Evercore; Sara Evans, a partner at Finsbury; Matt Fischer, a partner at Potter Anderson & Corroon LLP; Victor Hou, a litigation partner at Cleary who was one of the lead litigators in the CBS litigation; and moderator Paul Tiger, a Cleary M&A partner who represents the Redstone family entity, National Amusements Inc., on corporate matters.
  • The Honorable Richard Ashooh, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Export Administration, delivering a keynote address on the impact recent developments at CFIUS and rulemaking initiatives by the Bureau of Industry and Security can be expected to have on emerging technologies.
  • Further insights on where we stand on CFIUS and export controls and what lies ahead from Cleary partner Paul Marquardt, who from Washington, D.C. leads the firm’s national security regulatory practice focusing on transactional matters; Brad Berenson, General Counsel of TPG and an active participant in discussions on CFIUS reform; The Honorable Clay Lowery, Managing Director of Rock Creek Global Advisors and a CFIUS official in the George W. Bush administration; and Ambassador Miriam Sapiro, Managing Director of Sard Verbinnen & Co., Vice Chairman of SVC Public Affairs and a CFIUS official in the Obama administration.
  • A “fireside chat” between Vice Chancellor Joseph R. Slights III of the Delaware Court of Chancery and Meredith Kotler, a Cleary litigation partner who has successfully argued a number of high-profile cases in the Delaware Court of Chancery.
  • A dialogue with Alex Stamos, former Chief Security Officer of Facebook, about the roles of law and in-house and outside lawyers in data privacy and security, moderated by Cleary partner Katherine Mooney Carroll, a former Counselor to the Secretary of Defense on cybersecurity among other matters and one of the leaders of Cleary’s work on cybersecurity and data privacy, and Amelia Miazad, Founding Director and Business Law Lecturer at the Business in Society Institute of UC Berkeley School of Law.
  • A review of new approaches in the U.S. and Europe to antitrust review of startup M&A by Cleary partner David Gelfand, the former Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Litigation at the Antitrust Division of the DOJ; Kathleen Bradish, counsel at Cleary and former Assistant Chief of the Antitrust Division’s International Section at the DOJ; Michael Moiseyev, Assistant Director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Competition; and Steve Tadelis, Professor of Economics, Business, and Public Policy at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.
  • An interactive session on how investor relations need to evolve in response to the latest priorities of independent directors and investors, with Cleary partner Pamela Marcogliese, who represents a number of Bay Area companies in connection with their shareholder engagement, disclosure, securities law, and governance matters; Chris Hill, Chief Legal Officer and Head of Global Corporate Citizenship at Dun & Bradstreet; Lauren Odell, partner and Chief Operating Officer at Gladstone Place Partners; Andrea Rose, partner at Joele Frank; Laura Stein, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of The Clorox Company; and Pat Tucker, Managing Director of The Abernathy MacGregor Group, Inc.

Photos, a detailed recap of the day’s discussions, the agenda, and a list of participants can be found here.

Please do not hesitate to contact any of your friends at Cleary Gottlieb to follow up on any of the matters raised at the conference.