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Business Firm News

2020 Mergers and Acquisitions

Our firm, Lei Jiang LLC, started 2020 with a good volume of deals and mergers and acquisitions. We continue to handle a variety of deals. In January, we successfully concluded an acquisition of a US college by a Canadian educational group. Then we put several deals together before COVID-19 spread in the US. They included a recycling company’s expansion and acquisition and several restaurant acquisitions. Currently, we are in the midst of a Chinese metal company’s second phase acquisition of a US company.

Even though the COVID-19 pandemic slowed down M&A activity due to uncertainty in valuations and companies focusing on liquidity and cost efficiencies, we expect to see more activities in three categories taking place:

  1. Well-funded strategic buyers using this opportunity to build sizeable positions in targets and /or attempt takeovers of undervalued companies;
  2. Corporates selling or spinning off non-core assets to address liquidity, leverage and valuation issues;
  3. Investors contributing capital in exchange for significant equity stakes in businesses in need of a recapitalization or with liquidity constraints.

If anything can be learned from the 2008-2009 financial crisis, we can expect a renewed use of equity as form of consideration for transactions among corporates. If you have any questions regarding M&A, please contact us. We specialize in international mergers and acquisitions and complex transactions.

For legal issues, please contact us.

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Firm News

2019-2020 White Collar Crime- Ohio RICO Defense

We represented two of eighteen defendants in a complex criminal RICO case in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court in 2019-2020. Eighteen defendants were charged with various crimes, including RICO and other serious felonies. Moreover, most of them were immigrants. Therefore, severe immigration consequences became important factors as well.

RICO refers to Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act enacted first by the US federal government, then by many states. The federal RICO was enacted in 1970 and applies only to illegal activity involving interstate or foreign commercial. Since then, many states have adopted laws based on the federal statute. These statutes provide for extended criminal penalties as well as civil lawsuit for acts performed as part of an ongoing criminal organization. Acts include bribery, extortion, fraud, and murder. These laws allow the leaders of a syndicate to be tried for the crimes they ordered – this closed a perceived loophole that the boss did not actually commit the crime personally.

Since RICO is one of the most serious crimes, the burden of proof is onerous on criminal prosecutors, but if a prosecutor establishes a criminal RICO claim, the defendant goes to jail which may be for many years.

In this case, we obtained the desired results for our clients. We actively engaged the clients, filed all necessary motions, and conducted successful plea bargains.  In the end, the clients did not go to jail, did not pay a fine, and received only very minor charges.

If you are charged, we can help. For legal issues, please contact us.

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