Zahara Alarakhia is a Partner in the Firm's Corporate Transactions and Securities Practice Group. She focuses her practice on technology, electronic commerce and general corporate and securities law matters, representing emerging or start-up entities to large, publicly-held companies.

Ms. Alarakhia regularly counsels financial services businesses with respect to their electronic banking, merchant-acquiring, electronic fund transfer, credit card, debit card and stored value card businesses. As advisor to companies in the credit card and debit card processing industry, she negotiates services agreements and independent sales organization, BIN, agent bank and association contracts.

Ms. Alarkahia also has significant experience in merchant portfolio mergers and acquisitions; mergers, acquisitions and reorganizations of public and private companies; information technology matters, including matters involving inbound and outbound licensing and development, distribution, OEM, VAR, joint development, marketing and branding; general corporate matters, including shareholder agreements, covenants not to compete and intellectual property license and trade secret agreements; compliance with securities laws, including periodic reporting requirements, proxy solicitations, and dispositions of securities by insiders; and venture capital financings and private placements of equity and debt securities. Her practice also includes advising clients on corporate governance matters, including the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, and Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Act compliance.

Representative Experience:

• Representation of a private merchant services company and its affiliates in an offering of common and preferred stock, senior notes and subordinated notes as part of an aggregate equity recapitalization of approximately $135 million and a refinancing of an additional $200 million to provide a strategic platform for future mergers and acquisitions.
• Representation of various technology/Internet related companies engaged in the distribution and broadcast of sports events programming, including negotiating and drafting media streaming, licensing and other rights agreements, content distribution agreements, e-commerce and sales agency agreements, website co-branding agreements, privacy policy development and web development agreements, acquisitions of trademark and domain names and marketing agreements.
• Representation of international and domestic corporations in the negotiation and drafting of joint venture agreements and related documents.
• Representation of various other domestic and offshore private equity funds in formation, dissolution and merger transactions, and the acquisition and disposition of portfolio company investments, including extensive coordination with local counsel in numerous jurisdictions outside the United States.
• Private placements of interests in partnerships formed for the purpose of oil and gas exploration and operation of an intrastate gas pipeline, in amounts ranging from $500,000 to $54 million.