Shareholder Activism

Our Shareholder Activism practice represents public companies across all industries and market capitalizations in defending against a wide array of shareholder activism campaigns, including proxy contests, vote no campaigns, hostile takeover attempts, merger contests, short attacks and other activist challenges. Over the past five years, members of our practice have led over 100 activism campaign defense engagements. In addition, one of the leaders of our practice previously spent several years at one of the leading law firms focused exclusively on representing activists. As a result, our clients are able to leverage our extensive experiences with both the company-side’s and the activists’ playbooks to develop cutting-edge defense strategies. We also work with select investors on activism campaigns and strategic “white squire” investments in public companies facing shareholder activism threats.

Shareholder activism campaigns can last for many months and require daily attention to deal with activist tactics such as press releases, fight letters, SEC filings, regulatory relations and litigation. Our Shareholder Activism practice takes an integrated approach to address our clients’ issues throughout campaigns, working closely and seamlessly with leading investment banks, boutique advisory firms, proxy solicitors, public relations firms, private investigators, among others.

Our Shareholder Activism practice also works with companies in “peace time,” preparing them for shareholder activism by assessing and enhancing their organizational documents and corporate governance practices, and providing counsel on strategic relations with institutional and retail investors and proxy advisory firms. Additionally, our Shareholder Activism practice has pioneered a market-leading skill in recovering activism prep and defense costs under our clients’ D&O insurance policies.

The Shareholder Activism practice has been ranked by Refinitiv, Activist Insight, and FactSet for four consecutive years as the top firm for shareholder activism defense for company and board representation based upon the number of activism campaigns defended in 2019. Additionally the practice received a No. 1 ranking by Bloomberg in its inaugural shareholder activism league table following the same criteria, and was ranked by The Legal 500 U.S. 2019 in the Shareholder Activism – Advice to Boards category.

We also proudly devote considerable time to increasing gender and ethnic diversity in boardrooms and management suites throughout corporate America through hosting conferences, roundtables and continuing education seminars in partnership with national organizations that promote these important causes.