The ZipLaw Briefing returns with the week's biggest commercial and legal stories, decoded for training contract and vacation scheme applications.
🤝 Deal of the Week: Reed Smith and Osborne Clarke on the Essensys take-private. Founder Mark Furness is buying back his own AIM-listed company for £11.3m, 85% below its 2019 float price. We break down the squeeze-out mechanics under the Takeover Code, the AIM delisting process, and what this signals about small-cap public M&A. Essential listening if you're applying to Reed Smith or Osborne Clarke.
🚀 Story 1: SpaceX's $1.75 trillion IPO. Elon Musk's plan to take SpaceX public would be the biggest listing in history, with dual class shares, mandatory arbitration, and a pay package that vests on building a Mars colony. We cover the governance backlash, the Wall Street firms likely to be instructed (Skadden, Sullivan & Cromwell, Davis Polk, Latham, Simpson Thacher, Cravath, Wachtell), and why this matters for London.
🏠 Story 2: Why mortgage rates jumped without a central bank moving. UK two-year fixes rose 1.1 points in eight weeks. We trace the Strait of Hormuz shock through banking, structured finance, real estate, housebuilder M&A, competition law, FCA Consumer Duty, and disputes work.
⚖️ Case of the Week: Estée Lauder v Jo Malone and Inditex. Jo Malone says she \"can't stop being a person.\" We unpack the section 11 own-name defence, the 1999 sale agreement, and why this case will reshape how IP and corporate M&A teams draft restrictive covenants on founder-led brand acquisitions.
📰 News roundup: Saudi Aramco's profit surge, US inflation at 3.8% and Kevin Warsh's Fed debut, UniCredit's hostile bid for Commerzbank, and Amazon Now's 30-minute delivery rollout.
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