M&A
David C. Karp is a corporate partner at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. His practice concentrates on mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance, shareholder activism defense and corporate and securities law matters.
Mr. Karp was named Dealmaker of the Year by the American Lawyer for his work advising the New York Stock Exchange in its acquisition of Archipelago Holdings and the NYSE’s subsequent initial public offering. In 2008, the International Financial Law Review recognized the cross-border merger of the NYSE Group and Euronext, in which Mr. Karp advised the NYSE Group, as the M&A Deal of the Year. Mr. Karp is regularly recognized as a leading lawyer by Expert Guides and Lawdragon, among others, as a leader in his field.
In the area of corporate governance, Mr. Karp served as counsel to the New York Stock Exchange Corporate Accountability and Listing Standards Committee, which drafted the NYSE Listed Company Manual’s corporate governance listing standards.
Mr. Karp served as an Adjunct Professor of Law at New York University School of Law where he taught mergers and acquisitions law. He also writes and speaks frequently on corporate governance and merger and acquisition topics.
Mr. Karp earned a J.D. with honors from the University of Chicago Law School in 1993, where he was a member of The University of Chicago Law Review, and an A.B. magna cum laude from Harvard in 1990. Following graduation from law school, he clerked for the Honorable J. Daniel Mahoney of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.
Mr. Karp is a member of the University of Chicago Law School Council and the NYU Journal of Law & Business Professional Advisory Board.
Mr. Karp is a member of the American Bar Association, where he is a past vice-chair of the International Securities Transactions Committee in the Section of International Law and Practice. He is also a member of the New York State Bar Association and the Association of the Bar of the City of New York. He is a trustee of the Scarsdale Foundation and a past chairman and member of the Scarsdale Village Planning Board.
Mr. Karp lives in Scarsdale, New York with his wife and three children.