Washburn, J. Tayloe

Michael Levitin is a partner in the Corporate Practice Group. He joined the firm in 2000.

Practice

Mr. Levitin’s practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions involving public and private companies; corporate finance, including public offerings and private placements of securities; contests for corporate control; and general corporate matters.

Recent Highlights

Mr. Levitin’s merger and acquisition representations include:

• Century Computing, Incorporated and its shareholders in their sale to AppNet Systems, Inc.
• Rolls-Royce North America Inc. in its acquisition of National Airmotive Corporation
• Tier Technologies, Inc. in its acquisition of the assets of ChoicePay, Inc.
• uDate.com, Inc. in its sale to USA Interactive
• Westmoreland Coal Company and its separate subsidiary, Westmoreland Mining LLC, in Westmoreland Mining’s acquisition of the coal businesses of The Montana Power Company and MDU Resources Group, Inc.
  

Corporate finance representations include:

• Colonial Pipeline Company in the establishment of its commercial paper program
• Soflow, Inc. in its Series A venture financing
• Underwriters in public offerings of cumulative preferred stock by PS Business Parks, Inc.
• Westmoreland Coal Company in its public offering of convertible exchangeable preferred stock and Westmoreland Mining LLC in private placements of debt securities

Mr. Levitin successfully represented Tier Technologies in a 3-party proxy contest, Westmoreland Coal Company in a proxy contest by a group seeking corporate control, and Westmoreland in a subsequent consent solicitation over board composition.

Professional Activities

Mr. Levitin is an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law Center, where he teaches the international mergers & acquisitions seminar. Mr. Levitin previously taught the business planning seminar at Georgetown and has been a guest lecturer at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Representative Publications

Representative publications of Mr. Levitin's include:

• Export & Trade Finance. 2d ed. Oceana Publications, 2000 (with Roger Wiegley).
• “Looking Ahead: The Market for Buyouts of Public Companies.” Buyouts (October 15, 2002, at 26, 28 and October 21, 2002, at 28-29) (with Steven S. Snider). 
•  “The Treatment of United States Financial Services Firms in Post-1992 Europe.” Harvard International Law Journal 31, no. 2 (Spring 1990): 507-64.