What are those things circling the Nielsen-Arbitron deal?

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ArbitronThe deal $1.26B sale of radio ratings giant Arbitron to television ratings giant Nielsen certainly makes sense at face value. But does it make sense for the companies’ existing investors? Inquiring legal minds want to know, purely on the behalf of shareholders.


Did Arbitron breach its fiduciary duty to shareholders by not adequately shopping itself to all potential investors?

The swarm of attorneys and other professional swooping in is impressive to say the least. Here are the ones we’ve found so far:

* The Law Offices of Todd M. Garber
* Willie Briscoe and the securities litigation firm of Powers Taylor, LLP
* Rigrodsky & Long, P.A.
* Brower Piven, A Professional Corporation
* Glancy Binkow & Goldberg LLP
* Bernstein Liebhard LLP
* Law Offices of Howard G. Smith
* Ryan & Maniskas, LLP
* Harwood Feffer LLP
* Faruqi & Faruqi, LLP
* Block & Leviton LLP
* Kirby McInerney LLP
* Pomerantz Grossman Hufford Dahlstrom & Gross LLP

RBR-TVBR observation: Not to make light of this, but we can certainly say for a fact that despite our long time interest in all things Arbitron, nobody said a word about it being for sale to us, nor asked us how much we’d be willing to pay. And we’d be willing to bet that most if not all of the Fortune 500 companies were kept in the dark as well. Just sayin’.

As for employees of Arbitron and Nielsen involved in ground zero merger negotiations, be advised that at this point you can neither fling a brick nor swing a dead cat without hitting a lawyer or other securities professional of some type.