M & A Law Prof Blog

Corporate & Securities Litigation Workshop - Call for Papers

From our friends at the Workshop for Corporate & Securities Litigation:

The University of Richmond School of Law, in conjunction with Boston University School of Law, University of Illinois College of Law, and UCLA School of Law, invites submissions for the Sixth Annual Workshop for Corporate & Securities Litigation. This workshop will be held on October 19-20, 2018 at the University of Richmond School of Law in Richmond, Virginia. 

Overview
This annual workshop brings together scholars focused on corporate and securities litigation to present their scholarly works. Papers addressing any aspect of corporate and securities litigation or enforcement are eligible, including securities class actions, fiduciary duty litigation, and comparative approaches. We welcome scholars working in a variety of methodologies, as well as both completed papers and works-in-progress.
Authors whose papers are selected will be invited to present their work at a workshop hosted by the University of Richmond. Hotel costs will be covered. Participants will pay for their own travel and other expenses.

Submissions
If you are interested in participating, please send the paper you would like to present, or an abstract of the paper, to [email protected] by Friday, May 25, 2018. Please include your name, current position, and contact information in the e-mail accompanying the submission.  Authors of accepted papers will be notified by late June. 

Questions
Any questions concerning the workshop should be directed to the organizers: Jessica Erickson ([email protected]), David Webber ([email protected]), Verity Winship ([email protected]), and Jim Park ([email protected]).

Faculty Position - Richmond

Richmond is seeking to fill slots in the corporate area. See notice below:

The University of Richmond School of Law seeks to fill three tenure-track positions for the 2018-2019 academic year, including one in corporate/securities law.  Candidates should have outstanding academic credentials and show superb promise for top-notch scholarship and teaching.  The University of Richmond, an equal opportunity employer, is committed to developing a diverse workforce and student body and to supporting an inclusive campus community.  Applications from candidates who will contribute to these goals are strongly encouraged. 

Inquiries and requests for additional information may be directed to Professor Jessica Erickson, Chair of Faculty Appointments, at [email protected]. 

-bjmq

Call for Papers: Access to the Courts in the Transactional Setting

CALL FOR PAPERS

AALS Section on Transactional Law and Skills

Access to the Courts in the Transactional Setting

2018 AALS Annual Meeting

San Diego, CA

 

 

This call for papers solicits unpublished papers that analyze the question of access to the courts in a variety of transactional law settings.

From small business disputes, to mandatory consumer arbitration, to restrictions on shareholder lawsuits, it is no longer obvious that parties will have access to courts in the event of a dispute. In many cases small businesses may negotiate for alternative dispute resolution in commercial contracts as more efficient than going to courts. In others, like in the context of consumer contracting, restricting access to the courts is not typically subject of negotiation, and many consumer transactions now come with mandatory arbitration clauses. In recent years, in response to an explosion in shareholder and class action litigation, corporations also began to look to a variety of self-help remedies (often aided by state legislatures), including exclusive forum provisions and fee-shifting provisions among others, to restrict access to the courts by shareholders.

Taken together one could reasonably question whether the current trajectory in common business and consumer settings to limit parties and third parties access to the courts through a variety of transactional mechanisms is good policy or it goes too far.

The Section on Transactional Law and Skills invites submissions from any full-time faculty member of an AALS member school who has written an unpublished paper, is working on a paper, or who is interested in writing a paper on this topic to submit a 1 or 2-page proposal to the Chair of the Section by August 31, 2017. Papers accepted for publication as of August 31, 2017 that will not yet be published as of the 2018 meeting are also encouraged. The Executive Committee will review all submissions and select proposals for presentation as part of our AALS 2018 Section Meeting.

Please direct all submissions and questions to the Chair of the Section, Brian JM Quinn, section chair, at the address below:

Brian JM Quinn
Boston College Law School
885 Centre St., Newton MA 02459
Email: [email protected]

Call for Papers: Workshop for Corporate & Securities Litigation

Fifth Annual Workshop for Corporate & Securities Litigation: Call for Papers

UCLA School of Law, in conjunction with the University of Richmond School of Law, Boston University School of Law, and University of Illinois College of Law, invites submissions for the Fifth Annual Workshop for Corporate & Securities Litigation. This workshop will be held on October 20-21, 2017 at UCLA School of Law in Los Angeles, California.

Overview

This annual workshop brings together scholars focused on corporate and securities litigation to present their scholarly works. Papers addressing any aspect of corporate and securities litigation or enforcement are eligible. Appropriate topics include, but are not limited to, securities class actions, fiduciary duty litigation, or comparative approaches to business litigation. We welcome scholars working in a variety of methodologies, as well as both completed papers and works-in-progress at any stage.

Authors whose papers are selected will be invited to present their work at a workshop hosted by UCLA School of Law on October 20-21, 2017.  Hotel costs will be covered. Participants will pay for their own travel and other expenses.

Submissions

If you are interested in participating, please send the paper you would like to present, or an abstract of the paper, to [email protected] by Friday, May 26, 2017. Please include your name, current position, and contact information in the e-mail accompanying the submission. Authors of accepted papers will be notified by late June. 

Questions

Any questions concerning the workshop should be directed to the organizers: Jim Park ([email protected]), Jessica Erickson ([email protected]), David Webber ([email protected]) and Verity Winship ([email protected]).

Appraisal and Merger Price

Over the past couple of years something has been happening in appraisal litigation. For a long time, appraisal litigation was something of a backwater: experts battling over which variables a judge must insert into a discounted cash flow model and the proper level for beta. Shoot me. 

Anyway, as I said, something is happening. Appraisal litigation is getting more interesting. In part this is a response to the growing interest in appraisal proceedings by investment funds. Myers and Korsmo wrote about this trend in their 2015 paper Appraisal Arbitrage and the Future of Public Company M&A. As they laid out in their paper, there has been an explosion in investor interest in appraisal proceedings. Appraisal arbitrage, it turns out, is good business. 

As the number of appraisal actions has increased (partly also in response to the Corwin ruling having some bite), so too has attention to how fair value is determined by the courts. In the last couple of years, at the Chancery Court, chancellors have started moving away from the view that the court will determine fair value without regard to the merger price. Now, in certain circumstances (where the deal price is a product of a competitive or robust sales price) chancellors may consider merger price as one of the relevant factors for purposes of determining fair value.

Now this question has found its way to the Delaware Supreme Court and the parties are lining up on both sides. There are even amici! Two sets of amici have rolled up: on the one side there are law professors arguing that the court should be able to presumptively rely on merger price to determine fair value in an appraisal proceeding unless that price does not result from arm's length bargaining (DFC Holdings - Bainbridge, et al). On the other are law professors arguing requiring a court to rely on merger price to determine fair value would run counter to the language of the statutory appraisal remedy and also not always reflect fair value (DFC Holdings - Talley, et al).  Read both briefs. They are a great review of the issues relating to this issue.

-bjmq

 

Antitrust review revolution?

Ok, so revolution is perhaps a bit overblown. But, we are about to undergo a significant change in antitrust enforcement in the context of merger and acquisitions - probably more significant than the change we saw after the transition from Bush to Obama. Under Bush, the DOJ/FTC took a - relatively speaking - hands off/free market approach to enforcement. That approach was generally consistently with the free market principles espoused by traditional Republican administrations. With Obama, the DOJ/FTC became much more active in - again not inconsistent with general Democratic positions.

Well, now, it seems we are in for something completely different. 

While generally in line with Republican orthodoxy (see appointment of former FTC commissioner Joshua Wright to head up transition efforts), I doubt that we will be returning to a principled, hands-off approach to merger review. 

Take two examples. First, there's AT&T/Time Warner.  On the campaign trail, President-elect Drumpf made it clear that he believed such a merger would result in "too much concentration of power" and that his administration would not likely approve the deal.  Clearly, CNN (Time Warner asset) attracted attention (negative) of the President-elect. Last week, one day after the press conference in which President-elect Drumpf ripped into CNN ("fake news!"), AT&T's CEO paid a visit to the President-elect at Drumpf Tower.  Although he denies it, it's hard to imagine that the pending transaction did not come in conversation or that it wasn't at least obliquely part of the discussion. Clearly, AT&T understands that it has to be on the President-elect's good side if it wants the deal to be approved.

Second, there is the pending Bayer-Monsanto transaction. The $66 bn mega merger which is to create one of the world's largest agriculture conglomerates was announced last September. Since then, it has been subject to regulatory review.  Last week, the CEOs of both Bayer and Monsanto made a pilgrimage to Drumpf Tower to discuss the deal with the President-elect. Today comes news that the Bayer and Monsanto are going to promise to create jobs in the US in exchange for regulatory approval. 

So we have moved into wholly new territory: regulation by deal. If you want your high profile deal approved, forget what FTC/DOJ have to say, get an audience with President Drumpf and he will bless the transaction in exchange for some jobs or whatever else. It's the kind of move that is more common in the developing world than here or in Europe, but that's the new reality. 

Hang on.

-bjmq

Ross Johnson, RJR Nabisco, and Barbarians

I'd be remiss if I didn't note that F. Ross Johnson recently passed away. Johnson was the real life protagonist of Bryan Burrough and John Helyar's Barbarians at the Gate - the story of the auction of RJR Nabisco and Johnson audacious attempt to lead a management buyout.  You can find the official obit here at the NY Times.  But, for most of us, we'll always have the HBO treatment of Barbarians at the Gate to remember those times.

-bjmq

 

Richmond is Hiring

From the law school at the University of Richmond:

The University of Richmond School of Law seeks to fill two entry-level tenure-track positions for the 2017-2018 academic year, including one in corporate/transactional law.  Candidates should have outstanding academic credentials and show superb promise for top-notch scholarship and teaching.  The University of Richmond, an equal opportunity employer, is committed to developing a diverse workforce and student body and to supporting an inclusive campus community.  Applications from candidates who will contribute to these goals are strongly encouraged. 

Inquiries and requests for additional information may be directed to Professor Jessica Erickson, Chair of Faculty Appointments, at [email protected]. 

- AA

No-brainers and conflicts

So, Elon Musk of both SolarCity and Tesla fame has announced a "no-brainer": the merger of SolarCity and Tesla. you can find a copy of SolarCity's offer to acquire Tesla here.  Obviously, with Musk on both sides of this deal, he is conflicted, as is his fellow director Antonio Gracias. But, as we know, being on both sides of a deal isn't necessarily damning. SolarCity's offer lays out a basic strategy for trying to ensure a deal, should it proceed, gets the business judgment presumption (from the offer):

To help ensure that, Tesla is prepared to make the consummation of a combination of our companies subject to the approval of a majority of disinterested stockholders of both SolarCity and Tesla voting on the transaction. In addition, as a result of their overlapping directorships, Elon Musk and Antonio Gracias have recused themselves from voting on this proposal at the Tesla board meeting at which it was approved, and will recuse themselves from voting on this proposal at the SolarCity board as well. We believe that any transaction should be the result of full and fair deliberation and negotiation by both of our boards and the fully-informed consideration of our respective stockholders.

So, the basic structure will include a requirement that the deal be approved by a majority of disinterested stockholders and also recusals from interested directors - as both directors and stockholders.  That's usually enough to ensure business judgment, especially since Musk's position is short of that of a controller (approximately 20% or so of SolarCity and 25% of Tesla). Given that Musk's position will be sterilized through recusal a decision whether this deal turns out to be a no brainer or not will fall on the shoulders of disinterested stockholders. Delaware courts have leaned heavily on this kind of process to remedy defects of transactions involving interested directors/stockholders.  Dell followed a similar path in its going private transaction. The process it adopted sought to ensure that Michael Dell would not have a direct effect on vote of stockholders by sterilizing his shares and recusing himself from board deliberations. The deal got done. But, two years plus later, in an appraisal action the court determined the price stockholders received in that deal fell short of a "fair value". That leaves one to wonder whether these procedural safeguards are as effective as the court hopes.

-bjmq

 

Evolution of Merger Agreements

Anderson and Manns have posted a draft of a paper they presented at this year's AALS Transactional Law panel in NYC, The Inefficient Evolution of Merger Agreements. This paper is one of a couple of recent papers conducting empirical analyses of merger agreements. It's well worth a read!

Abstract: Transactional law is one of the most economically significant areas of legal practice and accounts for a large percentage of the profits and staffing at most elite law firms. But in spite of its economic importance, there has been almost no empirical work on the legal drafting process and the evolution of transactional documents over time. We have sought to fill this gap by analyzing the evolution of public company merger agreements in a dataset that encompasses 12,000 merger agreements over a 20-year period. Using computer textual analysis, we are able to identify the precedent, an earlier merger agreement, which serves as the template for the drafting of each deal. This approach allows us to construct comprehensive “family trees” of merger agreements, which we use to show how agreements are created and how they change over time.

We use this innovative approach to explore whether transactional drafting is driven by a rational process that minimizes the cost of deal documentation and risk to clients or by an ad hoc process that increases billable hours and risk. We show that a high level of “editorial churning,” ad hoc edits that appear to be cosmetic rather than substantive, takes place in legal drafting. Over half of the text of merger agreements is routinely rewritten during the drafting process even though the substantive provisions of merger agreements have similar features. Significant variation exists among merger agreements even involving the same firm as there is no evidence of firm-specific templates or industry-specific templates in most cases. Lawyers appear to choose earlier merger agreements as deal templates based on familiarity with past deals rather than based on the economic needs of clients or cost mitigation. Our empirical findings provide strong evidence of significant (structural) inefficiency in the drafting process which raises costs and risk to clients.

We argue that this inefficiency calls for an industry-wide solution of creating standardized templates for merger agreements that could be used across firms. The use of standardized documentation would help to minimize the time consuming (and expensive) drafting process of lawyer- and firm-specific edits that do little, if anything, to protect clients or affect the substance of the transaction. Furthermore, deal term standardization would have positive externalities as judicial opinions crystalize the meaning of standardized text. In addition, our analysis suggests that, somewhat counterintuitively, the failure to standardize text actually may stifle true innovation in the transactional context. We argue that by establishing an industry-wide set of “base documents,” lawyers could create the technological platform on which to create truly innovative solutions for clients at lower cost. While lawyers may not have the self-interest to embrace a standardized set of documents on their own, we argue that repeat-player private equity firms or trade associations for the private equity industry may have the economic interest and leverage to push for greater standardization.

-bjmq

Will they ever learn?

That was the question a friend asked. Apparently, someone decided Microsoft's proposed acquisition of LinkedIn was just too good to miss and purchased a boatload of call options just before the deal was announced. How much is a "boatload"? This much:

Hmm. Let's see. The average volume of LinkedIn call options back until February looks to be about 6 contracts per day according to this chart. Do you think the SEC would notice if I bought more than 600 contracts the day or two before the transaction is announced?! If I could put 600 in all caps I would have. It's just that ridiculous. Who ever this guy is, he is going to get caught. And you know what? He deserves to get caught. Just another example of someone's greed outpacing their common sense.

-bjmq

 

Get it while you can

Drafting guru Ken Adams now has a print edition available of his ebook, "The Structure of M&A Contracts".  I recommend this book to anyone dipping their toe into an M&A practice.  Seriously. For many law students now becoming law firm associates, the M&A contract is a lengthy almost incomprehensible document. The usual path is simply to ignore it and slowly absorb the structure of the contract by osmosis over time. That's one approach, or you can take a more active approach to understanding the document and how it gets drafted. 

-bjmq

Barclays Banker Pays for Renovations with Tips

The DOJ is pursuing criminal and civil charges against a former Barclays banker for allegedly paying for renovation of his bathroom with insider tips: 

According to the complaint, McClatchey began tipping the Long Island-based plumber, a friend, in 2013, enabling him to execute trades ahead of merger announcements involving 11 companies, including Forrest Oil Corp and PetSmart Inc.

In exchange, the plumber made thousands of cash payments to McClatchey, in some instances placing cash in a gym bag that the banker brought with him to a marina in Long Island, and also provided home renovation services.

 I think even under Newman free plumbing services is going to count as a personal benefit. Here's the civil complaint.  The SEC is alleging that McClatchey received cash as well as bathroom renovation services in exchange for insider tips on upcoming mergers.

-bjmq

Dell Appraisal Results

Well, Carl Icahn said $13.75 for Dell's 2013 going private deal was too low and he encouraged stockholders to seek an appraisal for their shares.  While Mr. Icahn wasn't patient enough to hang in there, for those who were, they got a 22% bump in the consideration due to them according to Reuters. Vice Chancellor Laster just handed down an opinion in the Dell appraisal case that set the "fair value" of Dell shares at the time of the going private deal at $17.62. Here's the Dell appraisal opinion.   So, according to the court, the special committee negotiated a price that was 22% below what the court believed was a fair value. Remember, the board was subject to Revlon during the going private process - so it was tasked not just with seeking a fair price, but with seeking the highest price reasonably available. One wonders whether how a board can fail to negotiate a fair price while still comporting with its fiduciary duties to seek the highest price available for its stockholders.

-bjmq 

Charter-Time Warner Cable merger gets approval

Two weeks after California recommended approval of the Charter-Time Warner Cable deal, now the DOJ/FCC have also cleared the way for that deal to close - but with conditions.

On April 12, California administrative law judge recommend approval of the deal under the conditions that 1) Charter upgrade all its California customers to high-speed, digital broadband within 30 months, 2) Charter comply with Federal open Internet access regulations, and 3) that for three years Charter not impose data caps on customers. 

Then yesterday, the DOJ filed suit and settled an suit against the parties. In the proposed final judgment that has already be agreed to by the parties the government and the combined company agree to a number of conditions:

Based on imposed conditions that will ensure a competitive video marketplace and increase broadband deployment, an order recommending that the Charter/Time Warner Cable/Bright House Networks transaction be approved has circulated to the Commissioners. As proposed, the order outlines a number of conditions in place for seven years that will directly benefit consumers by bringing and protecting competition to the video marketplace and increasing broadband deployment. If the conditions are approved by my colleagues, an additional two million customer locations will have access to a high-speed connection. At least one million of those connections will be in competition with another high-speed broadband provider in the market served, bringing innovation and new choices for consumers, and demonstrate the viability of one broadband provider overbuilding another.

In conjunction with the Department of Justice, specific FCC conditions will focus on removing unfair barriers to video competition. First, New Charter will not be permitted to charge usage based prices or impose data caps. Second, New Charter will be prohibited from charging interconnection fees, including to online video providers, which deliver large volumes of internet traffic to broadband customers. Additionally, the Department of Justice’s settlement with Charter both outlaws video programming terms that could harm OVDs and protects OVDs from retaliation– an outcome fully supported by the order I have circulated today. All three seven-year conditions will help consumers by benefitting OVD competition. The cumulative impact of these conditions will be to provide additional protection for new forms of video programming services offered over the Internet. Thus, we continue our close working relationship with the Department of Justice on this review.

Importantly, we will require an independent monitor to help ensure compliance with these and other proposed conditions. These strong measures will protect consumers, expand high-speed broadband availability, and increase competition.

While this is a big win for network neutrality advocates, it's the kind of settlement that the government typically tries to avoid in the context of antitrust regulation. Typically, the government would go for cleaner divestitures. Here, divestiture isn't in the cards, but more heavy handed regulation of the combined entity is the answer. A similar approach was used to mixed effect a few years ago in the Comcast Universal merger.  We'll see how this goes. Me? I've got Fios.

-bjmq

New M&A Casebook

I'm happy to announce the publication of a new casebook: Hill, Quinn, and Davidoff Solomon's Mergers and Acquisitions: Law, Theory, and Practice:

Being an M&A practitioner or litigator requires not only a knowledge of the law—the statutes, cases, and regulations—but also the documentation and the practices within the transacting community. This brand new book prepares students for practice. It includes, and explains, deal documentation, and discusses how negotiations proceed, referencing both the relevant law and transacting norms. It covers Federal and State law, as well as other relevant regulatory regimes involving antitrust, national security, FCPA and other issues. It has questions designed to get students to understand the law and the underlying policy, and problems to get students familiar with transaction structuring.

The text covers the latest materials on developments in the transacting world—where the law is going, where practice is going, how each might inform the other. And the book also has significant breadth, including chapters on accounting and valuation that should be accessible even to students with less quantitative facility, as well as shareholder activism and international M&A.

Run out and get yours while you still can!

-bjmq

The end of the letter opinion?

Over at The Chancery Daily, they have observed something interesting. There is has been a decline in letter opinions from the Chancery Court. I'd share some links, but The Chancery Daily is a newsletter, so you'll just have to pay for your own subscription. The Chancery Daily attributes that to the increased reliance by the courts on transcript/bench rulings. For many years the courts have admonished us all not to pay attention to transcript rulings as they do not create precedent. Sure, that makes sense if the rulings are off the cuff rulings from the bench. But as the Daily notes, there appears to be "an increasingly structured approach by the Court in rendering oral rulings, including recitations of underlying facts and explicit citation to legal authorities -- and may even resolve legal questions that are more than simply ministerial, or intended to keep litigation moving forward." So rather than being unstructured off the cuff rulings, these transcript rulings -- likely because the chancellors know that people read them carefully notwithstanding exhortations to the contrary -- are becoming more formalized with, in essence, chancellors reading formalish opinions into the record. The Daily believes the upshot of all of this is a decline in letter opinions. Twenty percent fewer by his guess. Yay for less paper. Or more paper, since it ends up printed in transcript opinions anyway. But, one has to pay for transcripts while letter opinions and memo opinions are free as part of the public record. Also, transcripts don't get hoovered up in many of the electronic legal databases.  Interesting. Not entirely sure what to make of this trend, but it's worth keeping in mind.

-bjmq

The Yahoo party

Nothing happens, nothing happens, and then suddenly everything seems to be happening. Such is the story developing around the sale of Yahoo.  The biggest surprise to me at least are the most recent names of potential bidders to pop up: DailyMail.com and Elite Daily. Elite Daily tags itself, "The Voice of Generation Y". What generation is Generation Y exactly?  The Daily Mail is ... well ... let's just say one of its highlighted stories right now is Princess Kate's Marilyn Monroe moment in Delhi.  Boy, has Yahoo taken a tumble. But here's an operative question for students out there as we approach exam period.  Now that Yahoo has started a sale process, is the Yahoo board permitted to consider the fact that one of the bidding groups is an upstart internet site and the British tabloid when it is evaluating which of the various bids to take? Can it say, "We're never selling to that group, we're only selling to a real buyer like a Verizon"? So, not hiding the ball: we're in Revlon-land. Time to start thinking about how the board will maneuver its way through to sale.

-bjmq

Visualizing M&A Returns

The fact that most mergers aren't in fact value enhancers for stockholder's of the acquirer isn't exactly news to people who pay attention to these things.  Sure, selling stockholders make out well. As they should. They typically receive a premium to sell their shares. But what about buyer's stockholders? Meh. Robert Bruner summarized a number of studies of the profitability of M&A activity and found:

The mass of research suggests that target shareholders earn sizable positive market-returns, that bidders (with interesting exceptions) earn zero adjusted returns, and that bidders and targets combined earn positive adjusted returns.

Over at Braid, where they play with data, they've recently posted a nice visualization of the same:

It's an interactive visual, so go on over to Braid (link) and play with it. It's really very interesting. And what else are you going to do on a Friday afternoon? 

-bjmq

Well that was fast

Yesterday, the Obama administration announced new rules to stem tax inversions.  Today, Pfizer announced that it was terminating its merger agreement with Allergan, citing adverse changes in tax laws as the reason.  The merger agreement defines Adverse Tax Law Change as: 

“Adverse Tax Law Change” shall mean (x) any change in applicable Law (whether or not such change in Law is yet effective) with respect to Section 7874 of the Code (or any other U.S. Tax Law), (y) the issuance of an official interpretation of applicable Law, as set forth in published guidance by the IRS (other than News Releases) (whether or not such change in official interpretation is yet effective), or (z) the passage of a bill or bills that would implement such a change in identical (or substantially identical such that a conference committee is not required prior to submission of such legislation for the President’s approval or veto) form by both the United States House of Representatives and the United States Senate and for which the time period for the President of the United States to sign or veto such bill has not yet elapsed, in each case, that, once effective, in the opinion of a nationally recognized U.S. Tax counsel, would cause Parent to be treated as a United States domestic corporation for United States federal income Tax purposes following completion of the Transactions (it being agreed that, for this purpose, U.S. Tax counsel shall be entitled to make such reasonable assumptions as to the relevant facts and, with respect to notices described in Section 7805(b) of the Code published in the Internal Revenue Bulletin that announce the intention to issue future regulations, the most likely form that such regulations will take).

An Adverse Tax Law Change triggers a mutual right to terminate the merger agreement.  Upon a termination, Pfizer agreed to reimburse Allergan's expenses up to $400 million. In the press release Pfizer indicated that the amount to be reimbursed would be $150 million. 

According to the WSJ, the Pfizer-Allergan deal was the largest ever deal at $150 billion to be terminated.  If the Obama administration was gunning for the Pfizer deal when it announced its new anti-inversion regulations yesterday, it hit its mark.

-bjmq