2020 saw a large wave of fashion retail bankruptcies and some trends emerged. Part 1 of this two-part analysis explores going concern sales under section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code; sales of struggling stores to their deep-pocketed mall landlords; and the prospect of “Chapter 22" cases.

The evolution of the CCPA into the CPRA—from a law about “Consumer Privacy” to one addressing “Privacy Rights”—underscores a trend recognizing privacy as a fundamental right that goes beyond commercial transactions.

While last year saw the lowest level of cross-border mergers and acquisitions deals—by both volume and count—of any year since 2013, cross-border deals’ share of global M&A activity essentially stayed the same in 2020 compared to 2019.

The Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 has amended the Bank Secrecy Act with new enforcement penalties and arranged for further Congressional scrutiny of AML enforcement. The drafters clearly intended to shake up the AML enforcement regime to punish big banks and their executives more harshly than in the past.

DoorDash shares may have jumped 92% on their first day of trading, but SPAC IPOs were the deals truly delivering to insatiably hungry investors. Traditional IPOs retained their annual crown in deal count and deal value, but SPAC IPOs surpassed them on both metrics for the first time ever in the fourth quarter.