Fenwick Helps Crush $5.9 Billion Deal
Fenwick continues to crush it in the gaming space with the firm’s representation of ”Candy Crush Saga” developer King Digital Entertainment in its pending $5.9 billion acquisition by Activision Blizzard.
Fox Business called the acquisition, which is “the third-largest video game industry deal ever,” according to the LA Times, “one of the biggest buyouts in recent gaming history.” The Wall Street Journal added that the deal “combin[es] two giants of the videogame industry.”
Fenwick’s role representing the U.K.-based game developer was featured in The Recorder, as well as Law360 and The American Lawyer and the Daily Journal (subscriptions required). Activision is one of the world’s largest interactive gaming companies and produces industry favorites, such as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. The addition of popular mobile gaming company King will help Activision move further into the mobile gaming space, The Recorder reported.
"Mobile gaming is the largest and fastest-growing opportunity for interactive entertainment,” Activision CEO Bobby Kotick said in a statement. “We will have one of the world's most successful mobile game companies and its talented teams providing great content to new customers, in new geographies throughout the world.”
Led by corporate partner Mark Stevens, the Fenwick team representing King in the acquisition included corporate attorneys David Michaels, Ken Myers, Lara Foster, Kevin Adams and David He; securities attorneys James Evans and Katherine Duncan; executive compensation and employee benefits attorneys Blake Martell, Gerald Audant and Kristin O’Hanlon; technology transactions attorneys Stephen Gillespie, Jennifer Stanley and Michael Riskin; antitrust attorneys Mark Ostrau and Ashley Walter; securities litigation attorneys Dean Kristy and Felix Lee, and tax attorneys Adam Halpern and Ariel Love.
A Fenwick team also guided King in its March 2014 $500 million IPO and its acquisition of interactive entertainment company Z2Live Inc earlier this year. A Fenwick litigation team secured a stipulated permanent Injunction for the "Candy Crush" developer in a copyright battle with 6waves last year.