Mehdi Ansari

(The following information was supplied by the firm)

Recognized as an “IP Trailblazer” by The National Law Journal and named one of the world’s leading patent professionals by IAM Patent 1000, Mehdi Ansari is a partner and co-head of the Firm’s Intellectual Property and Technology Group. Mehdi’s practice focuses on advising clients on a wide range of transactions involving intellectual property, including mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, licenses, collaborations, research and development agreements, settlements and strategic advice. He represents clients in a wide range of contexts, including digital assets (including NFTs), sports, media and entertainment, consumer and retail, healthcare and life sciences, technology, telecommunications, and financial services (including FinTech).

Prior to attending law school, Mehdi received his bachelor of science degree, magna cum laude, in electrical engineering and computer science.

• “Athlete Publicity Rights: College & Beyond,” Brooklyn Law School Sports Law Symposium (November 2022)
• ​TechGC New York Fireside Dinner (July 2022)
• ​“Copyright Potpourri: Emerging Trends in NFTs,” Fordham Law School Intellectual Property Law and Policy Conference (April 2022)
• “Introduction to Non-Fungible Tokens,” CLE webinar (January 2022)
• ​“Advanced Topics in Licensing of Publicity Rights,” NYC Bar Sports Law Committee (June 2021)
• “The Future of Watching Sports,” Penn Law Entertainment and Sports Law Symposium (February 2020)
• “CIPO Scenarios,” IPBC Global (June 2019)
• “The Rise of Data in Transactions,” Global Data Review Roundtable (April 2019)
• “Technology Law in the Private Sector,” NYU Intellectual Property and Entertainment Law Society (March 2019)

Publications

• “Building blocks for the metaverse – practical IP considerations for NFT investors and creators,” IAM, January 2022
• ​“Out of the blocks – mitigating patent risk over distributed ledgers,” IAM, Summer 2020

Professional Activities

• Mehdi is co-head of the transactional subcommittee of the New York City Bar’s Sports Law Committee.

 

SELECTED REPRESENTATIONS

• Abiomed in its $18 billion pending acquisition by Johnson & Johnson​
• Anika Therapeutics in its acquisition of Parcus Medical for up to $95 million and its acquisition of Arthrosurface for up to $100 million
• Baxter International in its acquisition of Hillrom for a total enterprise value of $12.4 billion
• Bayer in its $6.9 billion sale of Bayer Animal Health to Elanco, creating the world’s second-largest animal health leader; its $66 billion acquisition of Monsanto – one of the largest all-cash takeovers of a public company; and its $9 billion sale of selected crop science assets to BASF
• Concordia Healthcare in its $1.2 billion acquisition of all commercial assets of Covis
• Merck KGaA in its $6.4 billion acquisition of Versum Materials
• Novartis AG in its $9.7 billion acquisition of The Medicines Company
• Oaktree in numerous healthcare-focused financing transactions, including in its strategic financing agreement with BioXcel Therapeutics, under which Oaktree and Qatar Investment Authority will provide up to $260 million in gross funding to support BioXcel’s commercial activities of IGALMI™ (dexmedetomidine) sublingual film, the expansion of clinical development efforts of BXCL501, and for BioXcel’s additional neuroscience and immuno-oncology clinical programs; its $225 million senior secured term loan facility with Establishment Labs; its $90 million senior secured term loan facility with borrower Mesoblast, Inc.; and its $125 million senior secured term loan provided to Marinus Pharmaceuticals
• UnitedHealth Group in various matters, including in connection with Optum’s $13.8 billion combination with Change Healthcare; its $4.3 billion acquisition of DaVita Medical Group; and its $12.8 billion acquisition of Catamaran
• Valeant Pharmaceuticals in its $15.8 billion acquisition of Salix, and its $2.6 billion acquisition of Medicis

• Alcatel Lucent in its $16.6 billion acquisition by Nokia
• ASGN Incorporated in its acquisition of Iron Vine Security and $350 million acquisition of GlideFast Consulting LLC
• Bright House Networks, in its combination with Charter and Time Warner, to create an $80 billion cable company
• Cymer in its $3.9 billion acquisition by ASML
• DiamondPeak Holdings Corp., a publicly traded special-purpose acquisition company, in its merger with Lordstown Motors Corp., an electric truck company, pursuant to which Lordstown became a wholly owned subsidiary of DiamondPeak
• Harris Corporation in its approximately $35 billion merger of equals with L3 Technologies and its $4.75 billion acquisition of Exelis Inc., the largest deal in the defense industry in nearly 20 years
• HUMAN Security, formerly White Ops, in connection with its market-changing merger with PerimeterX
• The shareholders of Hyperconnect in its $1.76 billion acquisition by Match Group
• Hyzon Motors Inc. in its merger with Decarbonization Plus Acquisition Corporation, a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), in a $2.1 billion deal in which Hyzon will go public
• Intel in many matters, including its $1.5 billion cross-license and settlement agreement with NVIDIA, its sale of more than 150 patent families to Sony, its joint development and joint venture matters with Micron, and many patent license and sale/acquisition agreements
• Kodak in its $527 million sale of certain digital imaging patents to a group including Apple, Google and Facebook, and its worldwide cross-license with LG
• Navistar International Corporation in its strategic alliance with Volkswagen Truck & Bus, which included an equity investment in Navistar by Volkswagen Truck & Bus and framework agreements for strategic technology and supply collaboration and a procurement joint venture
• Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan in many matters, including an investment in Epic Games
• Saama Technologies in the strategic growth investment and acquisition of a majority stake in Saama by Carlyle and a co-investor group for up to $430 million
• Symbotic in its $5.5 billion merger with SVF Investment Corp. 3, a SPAC sponsored by an affiliate of Softbank Investment Advisers, that resulted in Symbotic becoming a public company, and the $205 million common equity PIPE in connection with the transaction
• Unisys, a global information technology company, in the sale of its U.S. Federal business to Science Applications International Corp for $1.2 billion
• Volkswagen Group and its subsidiary Electrify America, a leading network of electric vehicle fast chargers, in the $450 million investment by Siemens and VW to support the more-than-doubling of Electrify America’s charging infrastructure to 10,000 ultra-fast chargers at 1,800 charging stations by 2026
• An investor consortium led by Skype and Silver Lake Partners in the $8.5 billion sale of Skype to Microsoft

• Assurant Inc. in its sale of Time Insurance Company, a Wisconsin insurance company, to Haven Holdings Inc., a Puerto Rico insurance holding company
• BancorpSouth Bank in its $6 billion merger with Cadence Bancorporation
• The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation in the sale of its subsidiary, Sumday®, to Vestwell
• The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation in the pending sale of its HedgeMark business to Innocap Investment Management
• The Bank of New York Mellon Corporation’s Pershing in its acquisition of Optimal Asset Management
• Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. in its $3.5 billion proposed sale of its Investor Services business to State Street, later terminated
• Citadel Securities in connection with Sequoia’s and Paradigm’s $1.15 billion minority investment in Citadel
• Citizens Financial Group in its $3.5 billion merger with Investors Bancorp
• DiamondHead Holdings, a SPAC, in its $572 million pending merger with Great Southern Homes (“GSH”), under which GSH will become a publicly traded company and DiamondHead will be renamed United Homes Group
• Goldman Sachs in numerous acquisitions, dispositions, joint ventures and financings, including in a recent minority investment in a new series of preferred stock in DealerPolicy, Inc. and in its €1.7 billion acquisition of NN Investment Partners from NN Group
• HSBC Holdings in the sale of its U.S. credit card portfolios to First Bank & Trust and Fidem
• Intercontinental Exchange in its $8.2 billion acquisition of the New York Stock Exchange and its $5.2 billion acquisition of Interactive Data Corporation
• M&T Bank in its $8.3 billion acquisition of People’s United Financial
• Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group in its $8 billion pending sale of MUFG Union Bank to U.S. Bancorp
• ​MUFG Union Bank in the pending sale of three legacy MUFG Union Bank branches in San Bernardino County, California to HomeStreet Bank in connection with U.S. Bancorp’s acquisition of MUFG Union Bank’s core regional banking franchise
• New York Community Bancorp in its $2.6 billion pending acquisition of Flagstar Bancorp, creating a new company with $87 billion in assets
• Piper Sandler Companies in its acquisition of DBO Partners
• The Trustees of the Rockefeller Family Trust, as sole voting stockholder of Rockefeller Financial Services (RFS), in connection with the formation of Rockefeller Capital Management and the acquisition of RFS by Viking Global Investors LP
• State Street in its $2.6B acquisition of Charles River Development

• AT&T in its $2.35 billion acquisition of Alltel wireless properties from Verizon, and its $950 million sale of AT&T Advertising Solutions and AT&T Interactive to an affiliate of Cerberus Capital Management
• DISH Network Corporation in its acquisition of the Boost prepaid mobile business of Sprint Corporation, and several strategic collaboration, license and supply agreements
• General Cable Corporation in its $3 billion acquisition by Prysmian Group
• Ruckus Wireless in its $1.5 billion acquisition by Brocade

Retail and Consumer

• Amazon.com in its $13.7 billion acquisition of Whole Foods Market
• Booking Holdings in its $1.2 billion acquisition of Getaroom from Court Square Capital Partners
• Carrefour S.A. has reached an agreement with Advent International and Walmart Inc. to acquire Grupo BIG Brasil—Brazil’s third-largest food retailer—for approximately $1.3 billion
• Knoll in its $1.8 billion acquisition by Herman Miller
• Motivate International, Inc., the parent company of Citibike and the largest bikeshare operator in North America, in its acquisition by Lyft, Inc
• Sotheby’s in its acquisition of Thread Genius, a startup specializing in taste-based image recognition and recommendation technologies
• TheNotCompany in its joint venture with The Kraft Heinz Company
• Tiffany & Co. in its $15.8 billion acquisition by LVMH
• United Rentals in multiple transactions, including its $2 billion pending acquisition of Ahern Rentals; its $996 million acquisition of General Finance; its $2.1 billion acquisition of BlueLine Rental from Platinum Equity; and its $715 million acquisition of BakerCorp International

Sports, Media, and Entertainment

• Collectors Universe in its acquisition of Card Ladder
• DraftKings in its $1.6 billion acquisition of Golden Nugget Online Gaming
• Frank McCourt and his entities in connection with Olympique de Marseille and various other business interests
• Lion Capital in connection with John Varvatos, including in its affiliate’s DIP financing for and acquisition of John Varvatos in a Section 363 sale process
• LSC Communications in its acquisition of the Print Logistics component of R.R. Donnelley & Son’s Company’s Logistics business
• The Madison Square Garden Company, now known as Madison Square Garden Sports (MSG), in the separation of its sports and entertainment businesses, which included a spin-off of its entertainment businesses into a separately traded public company named Madison Square Garden Entertainment
• ​Major League Baseball in its $900 million pending sale of its 15% interest in BAMTech to The Walt Disney Company
• Major League Baseball and MLB Advanced Media (MLBAM) in many projects, including the $1.58 billion sale of a majority ownership interest in MLBAM’s subsidiary BAMTech to The Walt Disney Company
• R.R. Donnelly & Sons Company in its spin-off of its financial print and PRS businesses to create three independent companies
• UBS in connection with its 20-year naming rights agreement for UBS Arena, the arena being constructed at Belmont Park which is expected to become the new home of the New York Islanders

Other Representations

• Canadian Pacific Railway in its $31 billion acquisition of Kansas City Southern, which would create the first rail network connecting the U.S., Mexico and Canada
• Concho Resources in its $9.5 billion acquisition of RSP Permian
• GGP in connection with Brookfield Property Partners’ $28 billion acquisition of all of the outstanding shares of common stock of GGP other than those shares currently held by Brookfield and its affiliates
• Standard Industries Holdings in its $7 billion acquisition of W. R. Grace & Co.