Speaker details

Biography

Richard Hall is a partner in Cravath’s Corporate Department. His practice focuses on cross-border and domestic mergers and acquisitions in both the public and private sectors, corporate governance advice and matters relating to activist defense. Mr. Hall is Cravath’s Head of the Mergers and Acquisitions practice for EMEA. Mr. Hall has a broad range of experience representing private equity clients, including American Securities, Brookfield Asset Management and Lindsay Goldberg. Notably, he represented Brookfield Asset Management in its US$1.3 billion acquisition of TerraForm Global and its US$3.8 billion acquisition of a controlling stake in and assumption of sponsorship of TerraForm Power, and Lindsay Goldberg in numerous matters, including with American Securities in the pending US$2.405 billion acquisition of AECOM’s Management Services business , its strategic partnership with Kroger to form PearlRock Partners, and its acquisitions of VDM Group and WEENER Plastik. Mr. Hall’s corporate clients have included AngloGold Ashanti Limited, Archer-Daniels-Midland Company, AXA, Banco Santander, Barrick Gold Corporation, GKN, The Linde Group, Royal Dutch Shell plc, Time Warner Inc., WestRock Company, Weyerhaeuser Company and The Williams Companies, Inc. Mr. Hall’s recent notable representations include Barrick Gold in its proposed US$42 billion merger and subsequent joint venture with Newmont Mining and its US$18.3 billion merger with Randgold Resources, Peabody Energy in its pending multibillion-dollar joint venture with Arch Coal, GKN in the proposed US$6.1 billion combination of GKN’s Driveline business and Dana, AXA in its US$15.3 billion acquisition of XL Group, WestRock Company in its US$4.9 billion acquisition of KapStone Paper and Packaging Corporation and its US$2.3 billion acquisition of Multi Packaging Solutions International Limited, The Linde Group in its US$70 billion merger of equals with Praxair, Inc., Delhaize Group in its US$29 billion merger of equals with Royal Ahold N.V., and Grupo Villar Mir, SAU and its subsidiary Grupo FerroAtlántica, S.A. in its combination with Globe Specialty Metals, Inc. Mr. Hall has been repeatedly cited as one of the country’s leading practitioners in mergers and acquisitions by, among others, Chambers USA, Chambers Global, The Legal 500 United States, The Legal 500 Latin America, IFLR1000, The Best Lawyers in America, The International Who’s Who of Merger & Acquisition Lawyers and Latin Lawyer 250. He was recognized by Lawdragon as one of “500 Leading Lawyers in America” from 2011 through 2019, and has also been named by The International Who’s Who of Business Lawyers as one of the ten “Most Highly Regarded Individuals” in mergers and acquisitions as well as corporate governance law. In 2018, Mr. Hall was named a “Mergers & Acquisitions MVP” by Law360 and a “Dealmaker of the Year” by The American Lawyer magazine. His work on behalf of The Linde Group in its $70 billion merger of equals with Praxair, Inc. was featured by the Financial Times in its annual FT North America Innovative Lawyers 2018 report. Mr. Hall was selected as a Mergers & Acquisitions Trailblazer by The National Law Journal in 2016. He also co-authored the U.S. section of The Mergers and Acquisitions Review. Mr. Hall was born in Melbourne, Australia. He received a B.Com. with honors in 1984, an LL.B. with honors in 1986 from the University of Melbourne, and an LL.M. from Harvard University in 1988. He joined Cravath in 1988 and became a partner in 1996.