Watson, Farley & Williams, a leading international law firm, has recently advised Falck Renewables Plc on the financing and offtake arrangements for the second extension of a wind farm project owned by Millennium Wind Energy Limited located in the Scottish Highlands. Millennium Wind Energy Limited reached financial close with RBS to project finance the construction of a 15MW extension to its existing 50MW wind farm project on 21 December 2010. The project financing made use of the European Investment Bank’s UK onshore wind intermediated loan scheme and demonstrates Falck Renewables Plc’s continuing success in accessing debt markets to fund its growing pipeline.

Mayer Brown, a leading global law firm, and Ramón y Cajal, a leading Spanish law firm, announced today that they have reaffirmed their mutual commitment to the alliance relationship they formed in 2007, which has enabled them to provide clients of both firms with access to top-tier legal services in the key business centers of Europe, Asia and the Americas. 

Genoptix, Inc. (Nasdaq: GXDX) announced today that it has entered into a definitive merger agreement to be acquired by Novartis. Under the terms of the merger agreement, Novartis will commence an all cash tender offer for all outstanding shares of common stock of Genoptix at USD$25.00 per share. The transaction implies, on a fully-diluted basis, a total equity value of approximately USD$470 million and an enterprise value of USD$330 million.

O’Melveny & Myers LLP represented Nektar Therapeutics (Nektar) in its underwritten public offering of 19 million shares of its common stock, raising approximately US$220.4 million.  The public offering closed on January 24, 2011.

After a year-long litigation culminating in a three-day evidentiary hearing, Morrison & Foerster LLP, the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, and the Public Counsel Law Center, today obtained the entry of an important court-ordered consent decree on behalf of students in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). The plaintiffs, students at some of LAUSD’s most impacted schools, had sued the State and school district over LAUSD’s layoffs of thousands of teachers that fell disproportionately on the most challenged schools, causing such disruption that students’ were denied their constitutional right to equal educational opportunity. The consent decree incorporates broad and sweeping changes that will protect schools similar to those of the plaintiffs’ from hard-hitting reductions in force (RIFs).

The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida last week upheld a judgment achieved by a Milbank team for the Firm’s client, the Central Bank of Mongolia (“BOM”). That victory capped a series of judgments in favor of the Central Bank, each in the amount of $69 million plus attorneys’ fees, on RICO, fraud and civil theft claims.