Eric Talley

Eric Talley Predicts SEC Review of Goldman Sachs-Facebook Deal

American Public Media, Marketplace, January 5, 2011 by Stacey Vanek Smith
http://bit.ly/h6Noo0

“The SEC undoubtedly is going to be kicking the tires of this deal, and they’re probably going to be doing so for a number of months. This is in part because they are wary of the possibility that down the road you’re going to see many, many more deals that are mimicking this exact structure.”

Eric Talley Examines Alleged Hurd Leak

San Jose Mercury News, November 5, 2010 by Pete Carey
http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_16538210

Hurd may have breached his duty not to disclose confidential corporate information, said Eric Talley…. But if she didn’t tell anyone else who traded on the information, HP was probably under no obligation to disclose it…. “If the board had reason to believe this person was not going be trading on inside information, or tipping others, it’s hard to cobble together a story the board should be doing anything more,” he said.

Eric Talley Notes Public Animosity Between Oracle and H-P

The Wall Street Journal, October 27, 2010 by Cari Tuna
http://online.wsj.com/home-page (requires registration; go to G:\Law School in the News\News Clips for article)

Mr. Talley said it is possible the two companies will reach a settlement before the trial is scheduled to begin. But he adds that Mr. Ellison’s statements, and the wide gap in damages assessments, suggest a pre-trial settlement is unlikely. “Usually when companies are trying to work out a settlement, they’re relatively quiet on the public airwaves,” Mr. Talley said. “That’s not been the case here.”

Eric Talley Sees Promise in AOL’s Acquisition of TechCrunch

San Francisco Chronicle, September 29, 2010 by Benny Evangelista
http://bit.ly/buMZgd

“Today’s news has kind of reminded people that AOL is actually not dead and buried,” said Eric Talley…. The acquisition of TechCrunch, which has about 40 employees, contractors and contributors, “is not a gigantic deal,” but it does give AOL a well-known brand within the tech community, Talley said. AOL also gains the potentially valuable CrunchBase online database of company and investor information. “That data could be the source of all types of future services that AOL is interested in getting into.”

Eric Talley Notes Risks of Merck’s Reverse Merger Strategy

Reuters, September 29, 2010 by Bill Berkrot
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE68S4WO20100929

“This is literally one of the things that keep M&A lawyers up at night,” said Eric Talley…. “People have tried that kind of an argument in a lot of judicial venues to say, ‘Judge, I want you to ignore the formal structure of this merger and pierce into its economic realities and call it what it is.’ Courts have been very unfriendly to that approach,” Talley said. While there is at least one notable exception … Talley said, “the doctrine has continued to persist in corporate law that the way you structure a deal really matters.”

Eric Talley Explains HP Suit Against Hurd’s Oracle Move

KCBS-AM, September 7, 2010 Hosts Rebecca Corral and Melissa Culross
(Link no longer active. Go to G:\Law School in the News\News Clips for transcript.)

“This is a very, very difficult collision course between intellectual property on the one hand and building your own resume of experience on the other hand. To some extent it has got to be the case that with a large tech-oriented company like HP, there are going to be very, very confidential pieces of information that are going to be extremely valuable to someone else.”

Eric Talley Examines SEC’s Rule Change on Proxy Access

The Conglomerate, August 26, 2010 by Eric Talley
http://bit.ly/9QMXpJ

But beyond political remonstration, what does this actually mean for investors? That’s the exciting $60-trillion dollar question. My candid answer is a little less titillating: Given the stock of empirical knowledge we have today, I submit that the only responsible answer to this question is a cautious combination of “it depends,” or “we don’t fully know.” And that’s why I think—a bit ironically—that proxy access may have been the right move for the SEC to take.

Eric Talley Explains Government Role in Oracle Suit

San Francisco Chronicle, July 30, 2010 by James Temple
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/30/MNEE1EM0EF.DTL

The fact that the contract was worth hundreds of millions of dollars could propel potential damages toward the upper range seen in these cases, said Eric Talley…. Hundreds of False Claims Act cases are filed each year, but the government tends to throw its full weight behind only the most promising ones, Talley said. “The (Justice Department) has determined this to be meritorious enough to put their own efforts forward, rather than sit on the sidelines,” he said.