Sullivan & Cromwell’s Technology Group advises technology companies on their most complex and mission critical M&A transactions, capital raising transactions, debt financings, technology transactions, regulatory investigations and disputes.
Our Technology Group employs a “whole firm” approach to help technology companies successfully navigate the projects that matter to them most. The group boasts a cross functional team of leading experts and advisors across a wide variety of practice areas, including mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, equity and debt capital markets, credit and leveraged finance, global antitrust and national security laws and regulations, intellectual property and technology transactions, executive compensation, tax, government investigations, litigation and dispute resolution. With the depth and strength of our team, we deliver practical and actionable advice informed by leading expertise, experience and strategic thinking.
The Technology Group has experience working with global companies across the full spectrum of technology sectors, including:
- enterprise software and services
- consumer software and services
- internet cloud services
- sharing (“gig-economy”) software and services
- semiconductor design, manufacturing, test and assembly and materials
- network infrastructure and security
- artificial intelligence
- cybersecurity
- fintech
Corporate Governance
Corporate governance represents an increasingly complex and critical area of focus for public companies. As boards of directors and management teams consider governance policies, they must also ensure that they protect long-term shareholder value and retain the flexibility to deal with takeover attempts and activist campaigns.
S&C’s cross-disciplinary teams—which include lawyers from our preeminent M&A, capital markets, executive compensation, takeover defense and activism, corporate governance litigation, cybersecurity and corporate investigations practice areas—offer the experience and insight to assist clients in effectively addressing these goals. In extraordinary situations, we can also field a crisis management team that is skilled in navigating the rapidly shifting complexities that can arise.
In every area of corporate governance—from ordinary course disclosures to extraordinary activist campaigns—we offer market-leading expertise honed from decades of experience.
Corporate Governance
Mergers & Acquisitions
Our M&A Group assists technology companies complete their most challenging U.S. and non-U.S. M&A transactions by bringing together a cross functional team of experts and advisors from around the firm. The Mergers & Acquisitions Group employs a unique partner-centric model to bring the greatest level of expertise, experience and senior attention to complex transactions that require seasoned strategic advice and support. At the same time, the Mergers & Acquisitions Group leverages the firm’s scale and global footprint to support transactions that require a coordinated legal team throughout the world.
Mergers & Acquisitions
Capital Markets
Our Capital Markets Group provides technology companies with sophisticated capital markets expertise, from standard-setting IPOs to novel structured transactions. S&C has a storied history in the U.S. securities laws, and we bring our deep experience to the table in all that we do, including equity, debt and hybrid and derivative securities offerings, as well as compliance with U.S. securities, commodities and other Federal and state laws and regulations that apply to U.S. issuers and registrants.
Capital Markets
Credit & Leveraged Finance
Our Credit and Leveraged Finance Group advises technology companies on their complex financing needs ranging from committed debt financing for large leveraged transactions to the full spectrum of today’s alternative and specialty financing arrangements. Our credit and leveraged finance lawyers advise on the full spectrum of debt products, including acquisition financings, bridge loans, term loans A and B, first lien and second lien term loans, revolving credit facilities, green and sustainability-linked loans, senior secured ABL, mezzanine financings, subordinated notes and high-yield bond offerings. We believe this ability to work across products allows us to see issues across the capital structure and be more efficient in negotiating and executing financing transactions. Our leveraged finance group also leads the industry in helping companies navigate complex liability management programs to restructure and optimize their balance sheet liabilities, a skill set unique in the industry.
Credit & Leveraged Finance
Intellectual Property & Technology Transactions
Our Intellectual Property & Technology Transactions Group advises companies on a broad range of intellectual property and technology issues confronting today’s cutting edge technology businesses. The Intellectual Property & Technology Transactions Group structures IP and technology intensive transactions such as cross licenses, collaboration agreements, outsourcing arrangements and dispute settlements. Our Intellectual Property & Technology Transactions Group also advises on the IP and technology aspects of mergers, acquisitions, joint ventures, spin-outs, financings and other corporate transactions.
Our Intellectual Property & Technology Transactions Group also boasts a team of leading experts on cutting edge artificial intelligence issues, advising some of the world’s leading AI companies.
Intellectual Property & Technology Transactions
Cybersecurity
Our Cybersecurity Group includes elite practitioners with deep government experience who have investigated and prosecuted cybercrimes and security threats and helped shape the field with award-winning and internationally recognized work in the area. Our interdisciplinary approach, enhanced by our extensive government investigations practice, enables us to tailor cybersecurity strategies that integrate our array of governance, regulatory, technology, investigations, risk management and communications expertise.
Cybersecurity
Antitrust
Our award-winning Antitrust Group is a premier one-stop-shop for technology companies facing business critical or global antitrust challenges. Our Antitrust Group helps the world’s largest technology companies solve their most critical antitrust problems, ranging from complex cross-border merger matters to criminal antitrust investigations, criminal antitrust no-poach and labor markets investigations, and sprawling civil antitrust investigations and litigation matters. Our Antitrust Group is led by practitioners hailing from senior positions inside the world’s primary global antitrust regulators in Washington, D.C., London and Brussels. Highly regarded by our peers and trusted by government authorities, our antitrust lawyers are consistently recognized for giving practical, business-focused advice, and for effectively and efficiently navigating the changing regulatory environment.
Antitrust
National Security
Our National Security Group draws on the expertise of a wide range of former high-level government officials with deep national security experience to offer clients practical advice on navigating the challenges at the growing nexus between business and national security interests. Our National Security Group includes former senior officials and attorneys from the Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the Federal Reserve, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of State, the Department of Justice and the national security units of multiple U.S. Attorneys’ offices, all of whom work as a coordinated team to help our clients navigate the labyrinth of laws and regulations, in the U.S. and throughout the world, that govern the review of mergers and acquisitions as well as day-to-day business operations and product manufacture and sale.
National Security
Executive Compensation
Our market leading Executive Compensation Group advises companies, boards of directors, compensation committees, management teams and individual executives on a full range of compensation-related issues, including individual employment arrangements, company-wide compensation plans and programs, market benchmarking and related stockholder communications.
Executive Compensation
Tax
Our Tax Group has earned a global reputation for innovative tax planning and developing solutions that are tax-efficient and practical. We offer decades of experience negotiating and structuring the tax aspects of some of the most complex corporate transactions. Our Tax Group is distinguished by the depth of our team’s expertise and experience as well as its attention to client service.
Tax
Criminal Defense & Investigations
S&C’s Criminal Defense & Investigations Group (CDIG) is adept at resolving issues on the cutting edge of enforcement and regulatory activity. With more than a dozen former federal and state prosecutors, as well as other skilled lawyers, our team understands how government authorities pursue cases and anticipates shifts in enforcement priorities. We have played a leading role in virtually every major U.S. law enforcement initiative of the past 20 years, and our lawyers have handled more than 125 criminal trials in federal and state courts.
Criminal Defense & Investigations
Crisis Management
S&C has an extensive track record of helping clients navigate some of the biggest crises in recent history. During the 2008 financial crisis, S&C was the trusted advisor for many major banks. Institutions including AIG, Barclays, Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Lehman Brothers turned to S&C for guidance through crisis-related merger and financing advice, and then through the defense of the aggressive investigations, enforcement actions and civil litigation that ensued. S&C remains the go-to firm for high-profile, industry-shaping cases today.
Crisis Management
