At least a dozen firms are advising on telecommunications giant AT&T Inc.’s proposed $48.5 billion acquisition of DirecTV LLC, the nation’s largest satellite television operator. Announced May 18, the deal came three months after Comcast Corporation announced that it had agreed to acquire Time Warner Cable Inc. for $45.2 billion [The American Lawyer, Big Deals, April].
For the DirecTV deal, AT&T has mostly reassembled the same legal team it deployed on the $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile US Inc. that it was forced to abandon in December 2011 in the face of opposition by the U.S. Department of Justice. Sullivan & Cromwell M&A chair Joseph Frumkin and corporate partner Eric Krautheimer are leading the team. Other Sullivan & Cromwell lawyers working on the matter include tax partner Andrew Mason and special counsel David Passey, executive compensation and employee benefits partner Matthew Friestedt and special counsel Henrik Patel, IP special counsel Spencer Simon and associates William Blackman, Scott Crofton, Allison MacDonald, Stephen Miller, Jordan Oreck, Michael Portner Gartke and Adam Rachlis.
