As a decade-defining ruling approaches, Delaware’s high court is betting that a show of good faith to controllers in two recent opinions could insulate Chancery.

Before receiving bids from Netflix and Paramount, Warner Bros. refinanced. This move was bold and included a restriction on noteholders’ abilities to form cooperation agreements. Such language is part of a larger trend, liability management exercises (LMEs), which have become more aggressive in the broadly syndicated loan market.

Trends in state labor and employment laws in 2025 included news earned paid leave and noncompete laws as well as laws focusing on current and former members of the military. 2026 may see more states legislate on stay-or-pay laws.

With the landscape of college sports being compared to the Wild West and Congress unable to agree on a solution, college athletic directors may start looking at collective bargaining with student-athletes as the way to achieve stability.

Controlling-stake mergers and acquisitions, like global M&A deals, saw a resurgence in 2025 and may have been supported by confidence in the market and a friendlier regulatory landscape. 2025 brought back increased mega deal activity and also broke the trillion-dollar mark in deal volume for Q4.

The courts shepherding class settlements inside multi-district antitrust actions have been forced to take an active hand against third-party claim recovery services, offering a window into practices that divert settlement funds from claimants who already see high fees and costs eat into their recovery.