Coyote ugly

With the biggest banks busily digesting massive acquisitions and bumping up against deposit caps, midtier acquirers are gobbling up FDIC-seized banks. Haven't we seen this before?

As the crisis unfolded, private equity rushed to buy battered banks, only to discover this was one club they had difficulty getting into.

The banks are too big; the banks shouldn't gamble. There are many helpful hints about how they should be broken up and their activities curtailed, but so far, Washington's response seems to be 'subsidize, and muddle through.'

In Invesco's purchase of a Morgan Stanley unit, dealmaking stays in-house.

When Onyx Pharmaceuticals agreed to buy biotech Proteolix for $851 million, attorneys Richard Climan and Jane Ross of Dewey LeBoeuf crossed paths with their old firm Cooley Godward Kronish.

InBev taps Clifford Chance for counsel as it sells castoffs to private equity firm CVC Capital.

Juergen Lasowski engineered Onyx Pharmaceuticals' first purchase.

Daniel Tarullo is the Federal Reserve Board's newest governor. He's taking a hard line on PE investment in banks.

Finance lawyers Maurice Allen (pictured) and Michael Goetz to open an office in The City.

A Russian billionaire, a Chinese femme fatale and lot of distressed U.K. auto assets make for one spicy brew.

Government wants the power to seize and wind down nonbank institutions. Just how that would work is still very much up in the air.

Crushed by heavy debt and imploding banks, Ukraine struggles to restructure. Last year, the country's non­performing loans topped 14%, and the official number of insolvencies is expected to double this year.

The New York Times took a critical look at the succession of private equity shops that owned Simmons Bedding, But it turns out they didn't so terribly.

Neelie Kroes will not go gently into the night as she aggressively clears the decks as EC competition commissioner only two months before the end of her term.

Infrastructure deals may be reviving but private equity's role remains unclear.

In McDonald's Icelandic saga, a business disappears and re-emerges rebranded and rejuvenated without even a token exchange of money.

What to make of the corporate execs charged in the Galleon insider trading case?

A look at Sun Microsystems-Oracle, Sprint Nextel iPCS and Verenex-Libyan Investment Authority.

The behavioral crowd gets its chance to define us. But if we're all irrational, who should we follow?

Pay poor tax of $15? Not likely, Comrade.

IBM might be right in calling rival IT services providers antiquated. But does it matter?

The venerable magazine slashes its frequency and orders up the glitz. Funny how no one seems willing to follow the strategy of the only business magazine that's doing well.

The mogul of IAC/InterActive continues to shuffle the deck in search of a winning hand. Content, anyone?

A lawyer and an academic debate the constitutionality of Delaware's anti-takeover statute.

Anonymous trading platforms know as dark pools face the SEC's scrutiny because they create an unfair advantage for traders. Needless to say, Wall Street doesn't see it that way.

The DOJ and FTC consider revised deal guidelines.

Recent developments in the English restructuring market may leave mezzanine lenders in the cold.

The architecture of recent M&A deals reflects a changed environment. On the whole there has been an increased focus on risk allocation.