Wake Up Call: Simpson Thacher Poaches Linklaters Head of Tax in London

In today’s column, Davis Polk is advising on two big deals: Morgan Stanley’s $13 billion acquisition of E*Trade, and L Brands’ sale of a controlling stake in Victoria’s Secret to Sycamore Partners; Carlton Fields grabbed a former Baker McKenzie insurance chair to co-lead a fintech and insurance practice; and Hogan Lovells, White & Case, and merger-bound Troutman Sanders joined the parade of big firms reporting revenue and profit gains for 2019.

• Leading off, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett said Linklaters’ London head of tax, Yash Rupal, will join the firm as a partner in its global tax practice. (Businesswire.com)

• And in another big tax move, former Treasury attorney Elinor Ramey joined Steptoe & Johnson LLP as a partner in Washington. (BLAW)

• Morgan Stanley is getting advice from Davis Polk for its $13 billion acquisition of E*Trade Financial Corporation, which is represented by Skadden Arps. (Bloomberg News via BLAW)

• Davis Polk is also advising L Brands Inc. on its sale of a controlling, 55%, stake in struggling lingerie chain Victoria’s Secret to Sycamore Partners, a Kirkland & Ellis client. The transaction values Victoria’s Secret at about $1.1 billion. (BN via BLAW) (Davis Polk)

• With Hogan Lovells CEO Stephen Immelt set to step down, the transatlantic firm said its revenue in 2019 rose 6% from the prior year to $2.25 billion, while profits per equity partner jumped 9% to $1.5 million. (BLAW)

• Also in the $2 billion club, New York-based White & Case pushed its revenue up 6.6%, to $2.185 billion in 2019, while its PEP rose 8.25% to about $2.6 million. (American Lawyer)

• Atlanta-based Troutman Sanders, headed for an April 1 merger with Pepper Hamilton, reported a 5.4% revenue increase to $549.6 million and PEP up 8.4% to $1.164 million. (Daily Report)

• Carlton Fields’ New York office snagged the former chair of Baker McKenzie’s North America insurance practice, Huhnsik Chung, as a partner and co-chair of its fintech and property and casualty insurance regulatory and transactional practice group. Chung, arrives most recently from Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, where he was a partner. (CarltonFields.com)

• McKesson Corp. and two other opioid distributors have sweetened a settlement offer by proposing to pay more than $1 billion in legal fees for states, cities and counties suing them over their handling of the highly addictive painkillers. (Bloomberg News via Bloomberg Law)

Lawyers, Law Firms

• Willkie Farr & Gallagher grabbed the global head of Shearman & Sterling’s investment funds team, Laura Friedrich, who joins Willkie’s asset management group as a partner in New York. (Willkie.com)

• Seyfarth Shaw started out in 1945 with three lawyers and now has over 900. It’s celebrating its 75th anniversary this year. (Seyfarth.com)

• U.K.-based company Featurespace, which uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect financial crimes, hired former IBM Corp. contract negotiator Don Riddick to be the firm’s global chief legal officer. (Corporate Counsel)

• The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday said it reached a consent agreement on insider trader charges against a former legal department worker at an American International Group Inc. subsidiary. (Corporate Counsel)

• Holland & Knight hired three litigation partners to expand its healthcare practice into Texas, getting Eliot (Eli) Burriss from McDermott Will & Emery in Dallas; while Samuel Louis and Justo Mendez join from from Clark Hill in Houston. (HKLaw.com)

• Several Big Law firms were among companies participating in New York’s Career Discovery Week last week. (PFNYC.org)

Deals

• Hogan Lovells advised Dialog Semiconductor on its $500 million acquisition of Fenwick & West client Adesto Technologies, which makes integrated circuits for the industrial Internet of Things market. (Nasdaq.com) (Globenewswire.com)

• Morrison & Foerster advised the special committee of the board of directors of Pacific Oak Strategic Opportunity REIT, Inc. (POSOR I) in its merger with Pacific Oak Strategic Opportunity REIT II, Inc. (POSOR II). DLA Piper advised POSOR I, while Rogers & Hardin advised POSOR II’s special board committee. (PRNewswire.com)

Pro Bono

• An Arizona federal court Wednesday ordered the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency to overhaul the way it detains people in certain facilities in the Tucson sector. It found the facilities’ conditions to be “presumptively punitive and violate the constitution.” Morrison & Foerster, the ACLU, and other civil rights groups represented plaintiffs. (AmericanImmigrationCouncil.org)

Laterals, Moves

• Squire Patton Boggs is getting back former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio Ben Glassman, who started at predecessor firm Squire, Sanders & Dempsey in 2005. He rejoins the firm as a partner in its government Investigations and white collar practice group. (SquirePattonBoggs.com)

• McDermott added veteran, litigation and dispute resolution partner H. Peter Haveles, Jr. from Pepper Hamilton in New York. (MWE.com)

• Reed Smith got former K&L Gates corporate partner Nigel Stark as a partner in its Dallas office, which has doubled to 32 lawyers since opening nine-months ago. (ReedSmith.com)

• Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough said corporate and real estate attorney William J. Liss joined as a partner in its Boca Raton office. He arrives from Santen & Hughes in Cincinnati, where he was a managing partner. (NelsonMullins.com)

• Neal Gerber Eisenberg added veteran intellectual property lawyer David A. Wheeler as a partner in Chicago. He arrives from Chapman Spingola. (NGE.com)

• Blank Rome hired bankruptcy and restructuring associate Broocks M. Wilson in Houston. (BlankRome.com)

• Holland & Hart grabbed consumer products partners Chuck Cotter and Finity Jernigan from Polsinelli in Colorado. They’d been at the firm earlier in their careers and return with a team of an unspecified number of lawyers and staff, the firm said. (HollandHart.com)

Legal Actions, Decisions

• Volkswagen buyers who opted out of settlements in the diesel emissions cheating scandal are seeking to boot the judge from the trial coming up next week. (The Recorder)

• Google is getting sued by New Mexico’s attorney general for allegedly violating students’ privacy by tracking, without parental permission, their use of free Chromebooks the company provides to schools. (BLAW)

• Latham & Watkins won intellectual property cases for a Chinese company and a South Korean company accused of stealing trade secrets for lithium-ion battery tech. (The Recorder)

Technology

• A compliance tech startup called OneTrust is valued at $2.7 billion after its recent $210 million fundraiser. (Venturebeat.com)

Legal Education

• George Washington University hired University of Virginia School of Law professor Dayna Bowen Matthew to be its dean. She’s the fifth female UVA law professor to get hired as the dean of a top-25 law school since 2012. (Law.com)