Orrick and Perkins Coie land roles on Microsoft’s $1.2bn acquisition of Yammer

Seattle-based Perkins Coie was retained by Microsoft, with partners Stewart Landefeld and Andrew Moore leading the team.

Orrick has acted as long-standing counsel to Yammer. On this occasion, corporate partners Richard Smith and Daniel Friedland advised Yammer.

Microsoft’s global head of M&A Marc Brown and associate general counsel Keith Dolliver led Microsoft’s in-house legal team. Both lawyers are believed to have been involved in Microsoft’s last major acquisition in May 2011, when it acquired Skype Global for $8.5bn (£5.2bn) (10 May 2011).

Perkins has acted for Microsoft in the past, including its $70m acquisition of Israeli video start-up VideoSurf. However, it has also acted on the other side from the corporate giant on a number of transactions, including in 2007 when it acted as lead counsel to aQuantive as Microsoft acquired the advertising network for approximately $6bn (£3.84bn).  

Microsoft was one of just 20 companies profiled in this year’s The Lawyer Transatlantic Elite, alongside other technology companies such as IBM, Facebook, Google and Apple. It is available here.