ZipLaw Briefing

Reed Smith leads on Take-Private Deal | SpaceX $1.75tn IPO, Estée Lauder v Jo Malone, UK Mortgage Rates

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. — For more commercial awareness, head to ZipLaw.uk for ZipTracker (350+ cases and deals), Firm Playbooks, application insights, and successful training contract applications with expert feedback. Preparing for the SQE? Visit ZipSQE.com for 2,000+ MCQs, 40+ SQE2 mocks with AI feedback, flashcards, flowcharts, and revision schedules. Free plan available. Follow @ziplaw on Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn for daily commercial awareness and SQE content. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

White & Case advises on eBay's $1.2bn Depop Deal and Iran's Pistachio Crisis

In this episode of ZipLaw Briefing, we break down four major stories shaping commercial law right now — with the legal angles you need for vacation scheme and training contract interviews. First, Meta is cutting 8,000 jobs — not because it's struggling, but to fund a $135 billion AI infrastructure bet. We explore Mark Zuckerberg's vision for "personal superintelligence," the reported plan to track employee keystrokes to train AI models, and why this one story spans employment law, data protection, GDPR, construction, energy, IP, banking and finance, and competition law. Then we look at how the war in Iran has broken the global pistachio market. Prices are at their highest since 2018, Iranian exports have dropped 30 per cent, and the Strait of Hormuz blockade is forcing exporters to reroute through Turkey and overland to China. We cover the legal implications across sanctions, force majeure, shipping and insurance law, and commodity market competition — all triggered by the viral Dubai chocolate TikTok trend. Our Deal of the Week features White & Case advising on the CMA's pre-notification review of eBay's planned $1.2 billion acquisition of Depop from Etsy. We explain how the CMA pre-notification process works, why eBay is buying a Gen Z audience it can't build organically, and the competition concerns around combining the UK's second largest online marketplace with one of its biggest fashion resale platforms. Case of the Week covers Estée Lauder successfully blocking a "Cristiano Ronaldo Origins" trademark at the UK Intellectual Property Office. We break down the difference between likelihood of confusion and unfair advantage, why celebrity branding doesn't insulate you from IP challenges, and how the UKIPO used real-world consumer behaviour around celebrity brand collaborations to reach its decision. Plus in our news roundup: Tim Cook stepping down as Apple CEO, $166 billion in unlawful US tariff refunds, airline profit forecasts hit by the Iran conflict, and Trump's executive order to fast-track psychedelic drug approvals. ZipLaw Briefing is the commercial awareness podcast for aspiring lawyers. New episodes weekly. Head to ziplaw.uk for weekly briefings, law firm playbooks, deal and case breakdowns, and practical interview preparation. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Will this AI end the World?

Anthropic's new AI model Mythos has found thousands of cybersecurity vulnerabilities across global financial infrastructure and the people who run the world's banking system are seriously rattled. We break down what happened at the IMF spring meetings, why European banks have been locked out of the tool, and what it all means for tech transactions, financial regulation and disputes work. Then we look at the EU's plan to overhaul its merger rules for the first time in two decades, moving beyond the consumer welfare standard to weigh innovation, resilience and global competitiveness, and why the blocked Siemens-Alstom deal is still driving the debate. Deal of the week is a clean public-to-private on AIM with Charterhouse Capital taking Animalcare private for 235 million pounds, a great example of schemes of arrangement, irrevocable undertakings and equity rollovers, with A&O Shearman and Squire Patton Boggs advising. Case of the week is an Ocado patent win at the European Patent Office on inventive step, and why it matters for a company whose entire business model depends on licensing its warehouse robotics technology. Plus five in the news roundup including the IMF slashing global growth forecasts, Ticketmaster's antitrust loss, Amazon's $11.6 billion satellite play, Trump moving to replace Jerome Powell and Meta building an AI clone of Zuckerberg. The ZipLaw Briefing is the weekly podcast for aspiring solicitors who want to stand out in vacation scheme and training contract interviews. Each week, Ludo and Livvi break down the biggest stories in law, business and the global economy, and explain exactly how to use them to demonstrate commercial awareness. New episodes every week. Follow ZipLaw on Instagram and TikTok for daily commercial awareness content, and check out ziplaw.co.uk for Playbooks, SQE prep and more. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review and hit follow wherever you get your podcasts. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Are Airlines running out of Fuel?

In this episode, we break down a looming jet fuel crisis hitting European aviation, with airports warning supplies could run dry within weeks. We explain how disruption in the Strait of Hormuz is driving prices to double, and why this is triggering legal work across energy and commodities contracts, force majeure disputes, EU passenger compensation claims, insurance coverage, and potential airline restructurings. We then turn to OpenAI pausing its flagship UK data centre project, and unpack what is really going on beneath the headlines. This is not just about energy costs. It is about regulatory uncertainty, particularly around UK copyright law and whether AI companies can train on protected content. A perfect example of how IP law, government policy, and foreign investment collide, and why firms advising on TMT, data, and public law are right in the middle of it. Our deal of the week looks at Bill Ackman’s €55 billion move for Universal Music Group, using a SPAC-style vehicle to shift the company’s listing from Amsterdam to New York. We explain the strategy behind the deal, from unlocking US investor demand to restructuring capital through debt and share cancellations. On the legal side, Pershing Square is being advised by Sullivan & Cromwell, White & Case, and Stibbe, making this a great one to reference in interviews. For our case of the week, we dive into the £3 billion collective action against Apple over iCloud storage, which has now been certified by the Competition Appeal Tribunal. We break down how collective actions work in the UK, why litigation funding is central to these claims, and what Apple’s defence looks like. Which is represented by Willkie Farr & Gallagher, while Apple is being advised by Covington, with leading competition barristers involved. We finish with five stories you should have on your radar, including failed US Iran talks, the surge of Chinese EVs in the UK market, UniCredit’s stalled takeover of Commerzbank, shifting US employment trends, and OpenAI’s vision for how AI could reshape tax systems. If you want to stand out in interviews, this is exactly the kind of joined-up thinking law firms are looking for. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.

Anthropic beats the Pentagon, Freshfields, Covington lead on $6.7bn deal

Anthropic takes the US government to court — and wins. A food crisis nobody's talking about. Merck drops $6.7bn on a drug that isn't even approved yet. And a landmark jury verdict that just cracked open Big Tech's legal shield. In this episode of the ZipLaw Briefing, Ludo and Liv break down the stories that matter most for law students, vacation scheme applicants, and training contract candidates and explain exactly why they matter for your applications and interviews. This week: * 🤖 Anthropic vs the Pentagon — First Amendment retaliation, national security designations, and what it means for AI governance * 🌾 The global food crisis — why the Strait of Hormuz is threatening fertiliser supply, and why this beats the oil story for interview impact * 💊 Merck acquires Terns Pharmaceuticals ($6.7bn) — pharma M&A, orphan drug status, tender offers, and advice from Freshfields, Covington & Burling, and Gibson Dunn * ⚖️ Meta & Google found liable for teen mental health harm — product liability, Section 230, punitive damages, and what this verdict changes * 📰 Roundup: NASA scraps its space station, Danone buys Huel, OpenAI walks away from Disney, Australia-EU free trade, Elon Musk's chip factories, and Arm's first ever chip Whether you're prepping for a law firm interview, drafting a vacation scheme application, or just want to understand the legal stories shaping the world — this is your weekly briefing. 🎓 ZipLaw helps UK law students build commercial awareness and land top law firm training contracts. ---------------------------------------- Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy [https://acast.com/privacy] for more information.