Corporate and Commercial Transactions

• Mergers and Acquisitions
• Spectrum Leasing

Wilkinson Barker Knauer assists its telecom, mass media, and Internet clients with a full array of corporate and transactional legal services. All sectors of the communications field are in a state of transition, as companies consolidate, merge, divest and restructure to meet changing business and financial objectives and to respond to legal and regulatory changes. The firm has significantly expanded its transactional capabilities in response to the demands of its clients. We provide counsel in corporate activities such as strategic alliances, mergers, acquisitions, and the formation of start-up companies.

WBK has represented a broad spectrum of communications and information technology clients in mergers and acquisitions, asset and stock sales, financing transactions, public and private debt and equity offerings, formation of joint ventures and related matters, including assisting many to obtain federal and local governmental approvals.

The firm provides clients with assistance at all stages of a transaction including: due diligence, drafting a letter of intent, providing advice regarding legal and regulatory restrictions, structuring the transaction, forming the acquisition entities, negotiating and drafting appropriate agreements, obtaining necessary regulatory approvals, and preparing closing documents. Our attorneys routinely work closely with clients’ investment bankers, lenders, securities advisors, in-house counsel, and SEC counsel in connection with major mergers, acquisitions, IPOs, and other similar transactions.

Wilkinson Barker’s expertise also enables the firm to assist high technology start-up companies in their formation. On behalf of its clients, WBK negotiates the terms of alliances, joint ventures, consortia, and contracts for supply, interconnection, and transport with domestic and foreign service providers and equipment manufacturers. In addition, the firm does not hesitate to call on its attorneys practicing in various areas of telecommunications law to assist on specialized issues.

Attorneys at Wilkinson Barker have had an integral role in many of the largest mergers and asset sale transactions to occur in the wireless, paging and broadcast industries in recent years. In addition to facilitating these “mega-mergers,” the firm regularly assists clients with strategic acquisitions and dispositions of core regulated assets. WBK attorneys also have been involved in the negotiation and drafting of documents for some of the first transactions under the FCC’s new rules on spectrum leasing.

With the advent of spectrum leasing in 2004, WBK attorneys quickly became experts not only in the issues that typically arise in leasing transactions, but also in shepherding lease participants through the new FCC approval and notification processes. Our firm drafted some of the first spectrum leases to be approved under the new leasing rules, and our attorneys regularly assist numerous clients in a variety of spectrum leasing transactions