Bloomberg Law
Feb. 21, 2017, 9:50 PM UTC

Whoops! Client Conflict Check Creates $4B Merger

Gabe Friedman
Freelancer

Did a Big Law partner’s conflict check accidentally tip off a buyer to a deal in the works and result in one of the biggest media mergers of 2016?

That very well could be the case, according to a letter that Comcast general counsel Arthur Block wrote to the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Comcast purchased Dreamworks Animation SKG in April 2016 for roughly $3.8 billion in total. But that deal might never have come to pass if Comcast’s outside counsel at Davis Polk & Wardwell hadn’t called to make a routine conflict-check and accidentally spilled the beans that an Asian investment firm was ...

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