October 2020 LOCAL STRENGTH | GLOBAL INSIGHT

Whitman Breed Partners and Associates have been named “Connecticut Super Lawyers®” for 2020. Connecticut selection information at http://www.superlawyers.com/connecticut/selection_details.html

Charles Pieterse (Trusts & Estates Litigation), Jim Riley (Business Litigation), George Smith (Estate Planning & Probate), Rod Saggese (General Litigation), Thomas O’Connor (Rising Star – Civil Litigation), Luke Tashjian (Rising Star – Estate Planning & Probate), Kathryn O’Neill (Rising Star – Business/Corporate), and Wyatt Jansen (Rising Star – Business Litigation and Trusts & Estates Litigation) were named Connecticut Super Lawyers.

The Firm represented the Greenwich Land Trust in its purchase from the Aquarion Water Company of 72 acres of unimproved real property in the Lake Avenue area of Greenwich.  The acquisition was first approved by the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority and then closed between the parties.  For the transaction, the Land Trust entered a public/private partnership with the Town of Greenwich, with the Land Trust holding title to the property and the Town having a conservation easement over the property.  The Land Trust will now be able to conserve these 72 acres, protect critical habitat, enhance water quality, and preserve the community’s character.  Margaret Conboy and Tony Macleod worked on the transaction for the Firm.

August 31, 2020 – Whitman Breed Abbott & Morgan LLC is excited to welcome the attorneys and staff from the Greenwich-based firm of Smith & Grant LLP to our growing team.  Smith & Grant LLP was founded by attorneys George L. Smith and Elizabeth M. Grant and has provided a comprehensive array of trusts and estates services for over 15 years.

“We at Whitman Breed are very excited at the prospect of adding George and Libby, two of the pre-eminent estate planning lawyers in Fairfield County, to our team.  Their arrival will add significant depth and experience to our existing trusts and estates practice and enhance our trust and estates/fiduciary litigation capabilities,” expressed Whitman Breed Co-Managing Partner, Charlie Pieterse.

A trial team led by Lynn Neuner of Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Charles Pieterse from the Firm prevailed on behalf of two trustees in a litigation challenging a significant gift to a charitable trust.  The decision was a complete victory for the trustees and a consortium of other interested parties supporting the gift, which is believed to be among the largest in Connecticut history, on what the Court considered an issue of first impression.  The case was tried before the Complex Litigation Docket in the Connecticut Superior Court in Waterbury in January.  The trial team representing the trustees also included Sara Ricciardi and Joshua Polster of Simpson Thacher and Wyatt Jansen from the Firm.  Helen Z. Benjamin et al. v. Ralph P. Corasaniti et al., 2020 WL 3058149 (Conn. Super. May 1, 2020)

Richard Mancuso represented a medical equipment distributor in a cross border transaction for the acquisition of millions of pieces of PPE, including N95 respirators, sourced out of China for shipment to a consortium of Boston-area hospitals to assist in the national response to the coronavirus Covid-19 pandemic.  The transaction involved negotiating the terms of purchase and sale, addressing export restrictions, evaluating product certification standards, advising on product source arrangements, determining import requirements and structuring product acquisition funding.  The transaction is intended to be the first of many to be established regionally as the need for PPE increases across the nation.  Richard regularly represents clients in the purchase and sale of goods and equipment in a wide range of businesses, both on the purchasing and the selling sides of the transactions.

Wyatt Jansen was named to the technology subcommittee of the Connecticut Bar Association’s Covid-19 Pandemic Task Force.  The task force is coordinating the response to legal issues and needs arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.  Its members include lawyers, judges, and professionals statewide who are working collaboratively and swiftly to ensure issues and concerns raised by the legal community and the public are met.

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Harry E. Peden, III, Katie O’Neill, Kevin Walsh and Drew Nelson represented the largest investor in a restructuring of a private company in the healthcare industry.   The transaction involved a secondary sale of equity to a private equity firm.  The equity sold was valued at over One Hundred Million Dollars ($100,000,000).  In addition to negotiating and closing a significant transaction in the current economic climate, the Whitman Breed team addressed purchase and sale issues, tax issues and restrictive covenant issues as part of the transaction.