Bio

Chris has been advising on activism-related matters since the 1990s, when he served as legal counsel on Elliott Management’s first forays into the space. His history of representing both boards and investors gives him a balanced viewpoint on the challenges and opportunities facing both groups, and a sensitivity for the generational forces changing activism. Chris also counsels clients on mergers, stock and asset purchases, restructurings, workouts and bankruptcy sales, stock-for-stock mergers, auction sales, joint ventures, divestitures and financings. Chris has represented investment funds, start-up and mature companies, merchant banks and financial institutions and individuals in general corporate work and in numerous investments, private placements, loans, employment negotiations, Hart-Scott-Rodino filings and business combinations. Chris has been featured in such media outlets as: CNBC; Fox Business; Bloomberg TV; The Wall Street Journal; The New York Times; Bloomberg BusinessWeek; Corporate Board Member; Institutional Investor’s Alpha; The Deal/The Street.com; and many others. Chris is also a frequent speaker and has spoken or been a panelist at the 13D Monitor Active-Passive Investor Summit, the Harvard Roundtable on Corporate Governance and Skytop Strategies’ annual Shareholder Activism conference, among others. In addition to his practice and his regular speaking engagements, Chris also serves as an advisory board member of the The Ira M. Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership at Columbia Law School.