DAC Beachcroft has advised longstanding client Quercus Publishing Plc on its £12.6 million takeover by Hodder & Stoughton, a UK division of French publishing house, Hachette.

The deal is only the sixth conducted as a formal sale process under the Takeover Code that has ultimately led to a firm offer.   The offer of 60 pence per share for the London publisher was formally announced by Hodder & Stoughton on 25 March and went wholly unconditional on 24 April.

Slaughter and May is advising Cirrus Logic, Inc. (Cirrus Logic) on a recommended cash offer for Wolfson Microelectronics plc (Wolfson) that values Wolfson at approximately £291 million (US$488 million).

The transaction, which was announced on 29 April 2014, is to be effected by means of a Court-sanctioned scheme of arrangement under Part 26 of the Companies Act 2006 and is expected to complete in the second half of 2014.

DLA Piper has advised the publishing group Gruner + Jahr on the acquisition of VideoPlay, a video platform and its underlying technology from V-Bazzar Digital Group.

VideoPlay is a digital marketplace for videos, advertising and data traffic. The buyer of the video platform is a subsidiary of Gruner + Jahr, NetworkPlay.

Through this strategic investment, Gruner + Jahr and NetworkPlay are extending their digital portfolio and further strengthening the group and its position in the growing Indian media and advertising market.

In a judgment announced on 16 April 2014, the Warsaw Court of Appeal amended the decision by Poland’s competition regulator, the President of the Office of Competition and Consumer Protection, cutting in half the fine imposed on mobile operator PTK Centertel for infringement of the collective interests of consumers in connection with its ad slogan “PLN 0.25 per minute to everyone.”

In an earlier appeal by the company, the Court of Competition and Consumer Protection upheld in its entirety the decision by the regulator imposing a fine of PLN 4,839,375.

Judge Shira A. Scheindlin of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York granted with prejudice the motion to dismiss filed by Simpson Thacher on behalf of Twitter, Inc., in Precedo Capital Group, Inc. et al. v. Twitter, Inc., 13 Civ. 7678.  The case related to privately held Twitter stock in the time period before Twitter’s IPO.  The Court held Plaintiffs did not state a claim against Twitter, finding that there were no allegations that Twitter had any connection with the Plaintiff with respect to privately held stock or otherwise.

DLA Piper represented Avalara, Inc., provider of a leading cloud-based software platform that delivers an array of compliance solutions related to sales tax and other transactional taxes, in its acquisition of the line of Zytax energy-related tax automation solutions.

Avalara acquired the Zytax offering from FuelQuest, a provider of on-demand software and services for global downstream energy companies

DAC Beachcroft has advised Israeli company SintecMedia Ltd and its wholly-owned UK subsidiary Sintec Media Software Limited on their acquisition of Pilat Media Global Plc for £63.3 million.

SintecMedia, which is majority-owned by US-based private equity house Riverwood Capital, is a pre-eminent provider of global broadcasting management solutions for some of the world's leading media companies, including ABC & NBC Universal (USA), BBC and Fox.

Norton Rose Fulbright has advised IRIS Software Group, a leading UK accountancy and payroll software provider, on the acquisition of Cascade Human Resources Limited, a leading provider of HR and payroll solutions.

The acquisition gives the combined business a joint customer base of over 60,000 UK businesses, and will broaden IRIS’ product range to include HR solutions alongside IRIS’s Payroll & Bookkeeping applications.

RPC has advised Orion Media, the leading radio broadcaster in the Midlands, on a multi-million pound multi-year deal to switch their national advertising sales from Global Radio to Bauer Media.

Orion Media owns eight radio stations that broadcast across the Midlands including Free Radio and Gem 106. They are the most listened to commercial radio brands in the Midlands, broadcasting to 1.2 million listeners a week. [1]

RPC advised its new client, Orion Media, on all aspects of the deal.

Slaughter and May is advising Cable & Wireless Communications Plc (CWC) on the sale of Compagnie Monégasque de Communication S.A.M., the holding company for its 55% interest in Monaco Telecom S.A.M. (Monaco Telecom), to a private investment vehicle controlled by Xavier Niel, the French entrepreneur and industrialist. The aggregate consideration for the sale (on a cash and debt-free basis) is EUR 321,788,000 (US$445 million).