In June, George Casey advised Volkswagen AG on a joint venture with Rivian Automotive Inc. (RIVN) to develop electrical architecture and software technology.
The JV was only the latest cross-border deal that Casey, who moved to Linklaters LLP as global chairman of corporate in January from Shearman & Sterling LLP, has handled in 30 years of practice, as he described on this week’s Drinks With The Deal podcast.
After making partner at Shearman in 2002, Casey moved to the firm’s London office, which put him at the center of an extraordinary era of M&A. European and U.K. companies were looking to U.S. lawyers to help them import M&A tactics developed in the U.S., and Casey quickly developed a specialty in cross-border work. In 2003, he advised French aluminum manufacturer Pechiney SA in first defending against a hostile bid from Alcan Inc. and then accepting an improved offer from the Montreal-based company, which itself sold to Rio Tinto Group four years later.
Casey returned to New York in 2005 but continued to do cross-border work. In one of his most memorable deals, he advised Dow Chemical Co. in 2008 on a $17.4 billion joint venture with Petrochemical Industries Co. of Kuwait that the Kuwaiti government nixed. Dow sought arbitration under the contract on a JV and was awarded more than $2 billion in damages in 2012.
Since 2010, Casey has taught a course on cross-border M&A at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School, an activity that he does “for my soul,” he said, given how much he enjoys and learns from the experience.
Listen to the podcast with George Casey below:
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