Douglas N Cogen

Career

Widely recognized as one of the nation's leading M&A lawyers, Doug Cogen has advised companies on more than $200 billion in mergers, acquisitions and divestitures. He also advises technology, life sciences and food and consumer products clients on strategic and commercial transactions, corporate counseling and governance, securities matters, shareholder activism and takeover defense. He has led Fenwick’s M&A practice for over 20 years and served as a member of the firm’s executive committee for 10 years. Doug's transactional experience spans more than 25 years and includes cross-border transactions in the software, cybersecurity, internet, life sciences, medical devices, telecommunications, networking, semiconductor, computer hardware, food and consumer products industries. He has acted as lead M&A counsel for Cisco Systems in over 150 transactions, and was lead counsel on many industry-reshaping deals in the technology sector, including Symantec’s $10.7 billion sale of its enterprise security business to Broadcom, Concur’s $8.3 billion acquisition by SAP, and GitHub’s $7.5 billion acquisition by Microsoft. Doug’s life sciences transactions include Loxo Oncology’s $8 billion acquisition by Eli Lilly, Cepheid’s $4 billion acquisition by Danaher, and Audentes Therapeutics’ $3 billion acquisition by Astellas. Doug’s food and consumer products transactions include Clif Bar’s $2.9 billion acquisition by Mondelez, Fitbit’s $2.1 billion acquisition by Google, and Diamond Foods’ $1.3 billion acquisition by Snyders-Lance. Doug has been recognized as “MVP of the Year” by Law360, “Lawyer of the Year” by The Deal, in the “Hall of Fame” by The Legal 500, and as one of the Top 100 Attorneys in California numerous times by The Daily Journal.