Freshfields opens in Silicon Valley with seven founding partners
United States
Helping ambitious businesses act with confidence.
Freshfields is the leading firm for complex US M&A, litigation, governance and regulatory work, ranked by Chambers in Band 1 across the six areas of antitrust, corporate/M&A, dispute resolution, international arbitration, tax and public international law.
Our US team comprises 350 US-qualified lawyers in New York, Silicon Valley, Washington, DC, and worldwide, with the majority of our partners recognized by premier legal directories, including Chambers (Band 1) and Legal 500.
Our practice features a concentrated depth of expertise in the key legal disciplines most important to global businesses across transaction, regulatory and risk, including: corporate/M&A, antitrust, litigation, securities and shareholder litigation, enforcement and global investigations, white collar, cybersecurity and data privacy, international arbitration, capital markets, finance, restructuring and insolvency, CFIUS, sanctions & trade, employee benefits and compensation, IP/data transactions, tax, sustainability and corporate governance.
These strengths, combined with the knowledge, experience and energy of more than 2,800 lawyers and other legal professionals across 28 offices, have helped us build a reputation for breaking new legal ground, handling the highest-profile matters and solving our clients’ most complex corporate, regulatory and litigation challenges in the US and internationally.
As a global leader in SPACs (special purpose acquisition companies) and the de-SPAC process, we recently launched a SPAC resource center on the latest trends in this area. We handle all elements of the SPAC—from the SPAC's formation and IPO to the subsequent business combination—with top-tier M&A, capital markets, corporate governance, tax and benefits lawyers.
In short, we offer everything our clients need to make decisions quickly and with confidence: a global perspective, local knowledge, and sophisticated advice in any jurisdiction.
Recent US work
AstraZeneca on its $39 billion acquisition of Alexion Pharmaceuticals—the largest acquisition of a US company and largest acquisition financing of 2020
Barings on obtaining dismissal of a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York brought against Serta Simmons, Barings and certain other of Serta’s former first lien lenders who participated in Serta’s first-of-a-kind restructuring transaction
BioNTech on various research and development collaboration agreements, including its collaboration with Pfizer to develop a COVID-19 vaccine
Cazoo on its $7 billion business combination with SPAC AJAX I, including a concurrent $800 million PIPE
ConocoPhillips on an ICSID arbitration under the Netherlands-Venezuela BIT, arising out of one of the largest expropriations in history (victory on the merits for over $8.7 billion in damages)
Evonik on its landmark win against the US Federal Trade Commission, which had sued to block Evonik’s acquisition of PeroxyChem
Johnson & Johnson on the antitrust aspects of its $6.5 billion acquisition of Momenta Pharmaceutical
London Stock Exchange on its $27 billion transformational acquisition of Refinitiv
Ontic on its revolving credit facility and select term loans
Oracle on its $15 billion debt offering in March 2021
KfW IPEX-Bank as lead arranger and lender for the limited recourse financing of an ammonia fertilizer plant in Topolobampo, Mexico, expected to be the largest in Latin America
Marriott on the global coordination of its response to its Starwood database security incident
Team Inc. on its new ABL credit facility, new term loan, and repurchase of convertible notes
TriNet on its private offering of senior notes and new revolving credit facility
Zymergen on its $575 million IPO and listing on Nasdaq and conversion to a public benefit corporation
Our team
Gayle Klein Co-head of US litigation, arbitration and global investigations
New York, Silicon Valley
Pamela L. Marcogliese Head of US Transactions
New York, Silicon Valley
Jamillia Ferris US Head of antitrust, competition, and trade
Washington, DC
Noiana Marigo Global Co-Head of International Arbitration & Co-Head of Latin America Practice
New York
Beth George Partner
Silicon Valley
Aimen Mir Partner | Foreign Investment and National Security | Head of CFIUS Practice
Washington, DC
Nabeel Yousef Partner
Washington, DC
David Sewell Partner
New York
Menachem Kaplan Partner
New York
Mark F. Liscio Partner
New York
Lori D. Goodman Partner
New York
Nicole F. Foster Partner
New York
Claude Stansbury Partner
Washington, DC, Silicon Valley
Melissa Raciti-Knapp Partner
New York
Brian Rance Partner
New York