Tag Archives: Raaj S. Narayan

California Pushes Ahead With Climate Disclosure Law

by Ronald C. Chen, Raaj S. Narayan, and Carmen X. W. Lu

Photos of the authors

Left to Right: Ronald C. Chen, Raaj S. Narayan and Carmen X. W. Lu (photos courtesy of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz)

Recently, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law Senate Bill 219, which applies broadly to public and private companies “doing business” in California.  The law will require companies that have total annual revenues of over $1 billion dollars to disclose and independently assure their scopes 1 and 2 emissions (direct and purchased emissions) beginning in 2026 and to disclose scope 3 emissions (value chain emissions) beginning in 2027.  In addition, companies that have annual revenues of over $500 million dollars will be required to prepare a climate-related financial risk report in accordance with the recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures beginning on or before January 1, 2026.  Emissions disclosures will need to be submitted to the California Air Resources Board (“CARB”), or a non-profit emissions reporting organization designated by CARB, while climate-related financial risk disclosures will need to be publicly posted on the company’s website.

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Financial Institutions M&A 2022: Navigating Challenges, Realizing Opportunities

by Edward D. Herlihy, David S. Neil, Richard K. Kim, Lawrence S. Makow, Jeannemarie O’Brien, Nicholas G. Demmo, David E. Shapiro, Joshua M. Holmes, Matthew M. Guest, Mark F. Veblen, Brandon C. Price, Jacob A. Kling, Raaj S. Narayan, Rosemary Spaziani, David M. Adlerstein, Amanda K. Allexon, Lori S. Sherman, Eric M. Feinstein, Steven R. Green, Meng Lu, Amanda K. Toy, Matthew T. Carpenter, Kwon-Yong Jin, and Emily J. Hantverk.

Bank M&A surged in 2021 with total deal value reaching approximately $78 billion, its highest level since 2006, including 13 deals announced with values above $1 billion. Deal activity was driven by consolidation among large regional banks, continuing a trend that was kickstarted by the BB&T/SunTrust merger in 2019 and picked up steam in late 2020 with significant acquisitions by PNC and Huntington. Ironically, the pandemic in some ways provided a stimulus for bank mergers by prolonging low interest rates and slowing loan growth while massive government relief programs bolstered credit quality and increased deposits. At the same time, stay-at-home measures spurred a customer migration from branches to mobile platforms and accelerated increased competition from financial technology companies, necessitating increased investment in technology, often facilitated by greater scale. These combinations illustrated the increasing importance of scale and accelerating digital and technological investment and the significant synergies and value creation that a well-planned and executed strategic merger can create for shareholders and other constituencies on both sides of a transaction.
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