Erik R. Tavzel is a partner in Cravath’s Corporate Department. His practice focuses on mergers and acquisitions, board representations and corporate governance matters.
Mr. Tavzel’s clients have included British American Tobacco, Crown Castle, First Solar, Goldman Sachs, Lazard, Morgan Stanley, Northrop Grumman, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Rogers Communications and White Mountains Insurance. Some of his recent notable transactions include:
- The sale of Assisted Living Concepts, a national operator of assisted living facilities listed on the NYSE, to TPG Capital.
- The $4.8 billion disposition by T‑Mobile USA of its tower business to Crown Castle.
- The equity investment by BDT Capital and General Atlantic in Tory Burch LLC, which facilitated the settlement of litigation involving the company and certain of its shareholders.
- The $6.5 billion merger of equals between Biovail Pharmaceuticals and Valeant Pharmaceuticals, one of the largest cross‑border transactions in recent years.
- The $1.1 billion sale of Esurance, a leading direct‑to‑consumer auto insurance company, by White Mountains Insurance to Allstate.
Mr. Tavzel also routinely represents financial institutions in connection with important strategic transactions. He has represented Lazard in connection with Lazard’s acquisitions of Goldsmith Agio Helms and Lazard Asset Management. During the 2008 financial crisis, he was involved in many of the most fundamental transactions in the industry, including the sale of Bear Stearns to JPMorgan, the exploration of strategic alternatives by Lehman Brothers, Mitsubishi UFJ’s investment in Morgan Stanley and Morgan Stanley’s conversion to a commercial bank.
Mr. Tavzel was cited as being one of the country’s leading practitioners by Chambers USA: America’s Leading Lawyers for Business from 2007 through 2012; Chambers Global: The World’s Leading Lawyers for Business in 2008 and from 2010 through 2013; and The Legal 500 from 2009 through 2012.
Mr. Tavzel was born in Washington, D.C. He received an S.B. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1993 and a J.D. with honors from the University of Michigan in 1998. Mr. Tavzel joined Cravath in 1998 and became a partner in 2006.
Mr. Tavzel may be reached by phone at 212‑474‑1796 or by email at etavzel@cravath.com.