Botox Maker Bloodied but Unbowed in Hostile Takeover Attempt

In recent months, Valeant Pharmaceuticals has teamed up with Bill Ackman and his company, Pershing Square Capital Management, for an aggressive courtship of Allergan, the maker of Botox. This hostile takeover attempt has been particularly contentious, with ongoing litigation over multiple issues.

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eBay Spinning Off PayPal

On Tuesday, September 30, 2014, eBay’s 12 directors announced that they would be breaking up the company and spinning off PayPal as a separate publicly traded company. The highly anticipated split is expected to take place sometime during the second half of 2015.

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Burger King Buys Out Tim Hortons

On August 26, Burger King Worldwide, Inc. (“Burger King”) and Tim Hortons Inc. (“Tim Hortons”), a Canadian-based multinational fast casual restaurant, announced that an agreement was reached under which the two companies would create a new global entity in the quick-service restaurant sector.

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Treasury Attempting to Slow the Inversion Craze

United States companies are required by U.S. tax rules to pay taxes on profits earned elsewhere. Consequently, companies that receive a significant portion of their income from foreign sources are taxed both abroad and in their country of incorporation. Those companies are likely to use an inversion to lower their taxes – a strategy by which a company reincorporates overseas through a merger with a foreign counterpart, enabling the company to relocate its headquarters to a tax-friendly country. “Inverted” corporations still pay taxes on profits earned in the United States, but the inversion makes it easier for them to bring cash from overseas into the country.

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Guilty Plea from the Man Who Ate Tips

A man has pleaded guilty in federal court to securities and fraud charges stemming from his role as a middleman in an insider-trading scheme in which information was passed on post-it notes and restaurant napkins.

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Conflicts of Debt Payment: Citigroup, Argentina, and Judge Griesa

Citigroup recently became engulfed in an ongoing battle between Argentina and New York hedge funds led by Paul E. Singer’s Elliott Management. In 2001, Argentina defaulted on a record $95 billion in debt. The majority (92%) of the debt holders agreed to exchange their bonds for new discounted bonds under a 2005 and 2010 restructuring, while others like Elliot’s NML Capital unit held out to seek full payment.

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