Slaughter and May advised Google on the competition law aspects of its US$1.1 billion acquisition of certain assets of HTC Corporation (HTC) related to the design, engineering, certification and testing of smartphones.  In particular, Google acquired certain assets of HTC, including employees and a non-exclusive licence for intellectual property rights of HTC.

The media company STRÖER acquires DV-COM, a well-known provider of call centers

Global law firm Dentons has advised the shareholders of DV-COM GmbH on the sale of the company to STRÖER Dialog Group GmbH. DV-COM has been a leading provider of high-quality customer-care services for more than 40 years. Its service portfolio includes back office outsourcing, call center services, digital media as well as business process outsourcing. The company employs approximately 1,500 people across seven locations in Germany and Palma de Mallorca.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP (‘Freshfields’) has advised Interoute, the owner-operator of one of Europe’s largest networks and a global cloud services platform, on its acquisition by the leading global cloud networking provider GTT Communications, Inc. (‘GTT’) for €1.9bn.
 

BEITEN BURKHARDT has advised Media Group Medweth on the sale of the monthly women's magazine “JOLIE” and also on the sale of the digital offerings “Jolie.de” and “Mädchen.de” to Media Group KLAMBT. The Asset Purchase Agreement was concluded and signed on 28 February 2018 but the transaction is still subject to clearance by the competent antitrust authorities of Germany and Austria.

With this sale Jolie, one of the most prominent and successful women's lifestyle magazines, changes its publishing house.

BEITEN BURKHARDT has advised audio marketing provider SpotCom on the sale of the online audio portfolio. The purchaser is RMSi, the digital marketing subsidiary of the national radio marketing company RMS. The parties have agreed not to disclose the transaction volume.

WARSAW - March 2, 2018 - Greenberg Traurig advised Cyfrowy Polsat Group in connection with a signing of the Second Amendment and Restatement Deed to the loan agreements signed in September 2015 with a consortium of Polish and foreign financial institutions for a term loan of up to PLN 11.5 billion and a revolving loan of up to PLN 1 billion. These loans remain the largest and most innovative corporate loans made in the Polish currency.

Davis Polk is advising Comcast Corporation in connection with its £22.1 billion ($30.8 billion) possible cash offer to acquire the entire share capital of Sky plc. Under the terms of Comcast’s proposal, Sky shareholders would receive £12.50 in cash for each share. If made, the offer, that would be implemented as a tender offer with a 50% plus one share acceptance condition, would be subject to regulatory and antitrust approvals and other customary conditions.

Charles Russell Speechlys has advised the Civica Group (an investee company of Partners Group) on the acquisition of specialist software provider, OneStep Solutions (OneStep).

With offices in Huntingdon and Hadleigh, OneStep provides cloud-based application software and related services to support the complete debt recovery process.  Its products are used by local authorities and commercial agencies in over 1,000 installations, supporting all aspects of recovery and case management for office, call centre and field agent teams.

Jeantet counselled the Hoist Group, a specialist in media solutions (hardware and services), for two cross operations conducted with the mutualist group MNH (Mutuelle Nationale des Hospitaliers), including the transfer of activities devoted to the health of Hoist Group France and acquisition of the Comelec hotel activity and Netlogon from MNH.

This is a new stage for the Hoist Group, enabling it to recentre its activities in France on its target market in the hotel industry.

European law firm Fieldfisher has secured Binding Corporate Rules (BCR) approval for Avaya, the American multinational technology company that specializes in business communications.

On February 5th, Avaya obtained the approval of its Binding Corporate Rules (BCR) by the German Data Protection Authority of the Hesse region, following the formal submission of its BCR to the DPA on 20th March 2017. Avaya obtained this approval in less than a year from the date of submission, effectively making it one of the fastest BCR approvals obtained by Fieldfisher.