James J. Moloney

James J. Moloney is a partner in the Orange County office of Gibson Dunn and serves as Co-Chair of the firm's Securities Regulation and Corporate Governance Practice Group. Jim advises public companies, their boards and committees of independent directors in connection with reporting under securities laws, establishing and maintaining corporate compliance programs, mergers, SEC and other regulatory investigations, and stock exchange proceedings. He works closely with the firm’s Litigation Practice Group on securities litigation matters, including both internal and external reviews and investigations.

Jim has authored several no-action requests to the SEC and oversees the preparation of firm memoranda on securities law and corporate governance issues. He is a frequent contributor to professional journals and other publications, is listed in the International Who's Who of Corporate Governance Lawyers by Who's Who Legal, and regularly serves as a speaker at conferences around the country on a wide range of corporate governance and securities law topics. Jim serves on the advisory board of the Center for Corporate Reporting and Governance at the Mihaylo College of Business and Economics at Cal State Fullerton and previously served as Chair of the Proxy Statements and Business Combinations Subcommittee of the Federal Regulation of Securities Section of the American Bar Association.

Representative Clients and Transactions:

• Platinum Equity, and its portfolio company Solenis, on Solenis’ $4.5 billion acquisition of Diversey Holdings
• RTW Investments on its private placement and reverse merger for Rocket Pharmaceuticals Inc.
• Half the Aerojet Rocketdyne Board of Directors in responding to a proxy contest initiated and led by Aerojet Executive Chairman Warren Lichtenstein and activist hedge fund Steel Partners
• Depomed, Inc. in responding to Horizon Pharmaceutical's unsolicited exchange offer and consent solicitation to remove the board and acquire the company
• A committee of independent directors at B/E Aerospace in connection with the company's sale to Rockwell-Collins
• St. Jude Medical in its merger with Abbott Laboratories
• Kraft Foods in its acquisition of Cadbury Plc
• Ryland Homes in its merger with Standard Pacific (renamed CalAtlantic)
• Hewlett-Packard in its acquisition of Aruba Networks
• TRI Pointe Homes in its "Reverse Morris Trust" transaction involving the acquisition of Weyerhaeuser Co.'s home-building business
• Third Point in its successful proxy contest at Sotheby's
• Emulex in staving off Broadcom's hostile bid
• PeopleSoft Inc. in its sale to Oracle

Jim was with the Securities & Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C. for six years before joining Gibson Dunn in 2000. He served his last three years at the Commission as Special Counsel in the Office of Mergers & Acquisitions in the Division of Corporation Finance. In addition to reviewing merger transactions, Jim was the principal draftsman of Regulation M-A, a comprehensive set of rules relating to takeovers and shareholder communications, that was adopted by the Commission in October 1999.

In 1998, Jim received his LL.M. degree in securities regulation with distinction from the Georgetown University Law Center. He received his J.D. degree cum laude from Pepperdine University in 1994 where he was an editor of The Pepperdine Law Review. In 1992, Jim served as a judicial extern for Justice Armand Arabian at the California Supreme Court in San Francisco. He received his B.S. degree in business administration with a major in accounting from Boston University in 1989.

Capabilities

• Securities Regulation and Corporate Governance
• Capital Markets
• ESG: Risk, Litigation, and Reporting
• Emerging Companies / Venture Capital
• Mergers and Acquisitions
• Securities Litigation
• Shareholder Activism
• White Collar Defense and Investigations

Credentials

Education:

• Georgetown University - 1998 Master of Laws (LL.M.)
• Pepperdine University - 1994 Juris Doctor
• Boston University - 1989 Bachelor of Science

Admissions:

• California Bar