William Savitt is Co-Chair of the Executive Committee and Co-Chair of the Litigation Department of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. His practice focuses on complex commercial litigation and the representation of corporations and directors in litigation involving mergers and acquisitions, proxy contests, corporate governance disputes, class actions involving allegations of breach of fiduciary duty and regulatory enforcement actions relating to corporate transactions. Savitt writes and speaks extensively on corporate and securities law topics and is an adjunct law professor at Columbia Law School in the field of transactional litigation.
Lawdragon Honors
Savitt has played a leading role in high-stakes corporate governance and merger-and-acquisitions litigation in the Delaware Court of Chancery and in courts around the country. Savitt represented Twitter in successful litigation against Elon Musk when Musk sought to terminate his $44 billion merger agreement, compelling the deal to close on its agreed terms in October 2022. Among other recent engagements, Savitt represents OpenAI in its industry defining litigation; Coinbase in landmark litigation against the Securities Exchange Commission; successfully represented Boardwalk Pipelines in an appeal from the largest class action damages award in Delaware history; litigated the pathbreaking case of Corwin v. KKR Financial in the Court of Chancery and the Delaware Supreme Court; defended Allergan in response to a hostile bid from Pershing Square and Valeant; defended Sothebys’ shareholder rights plan against an activist investor attack; was lead trial counsel in the successful and unprecedented litigation effort of Vulcan Materials Company to obtain a court order enjoining an attempted hostile takeover by an industry rival; has defended corporate bylaw and charter provisions in courts around the country; has tried numerous M&A cases to successful verdict; and was lead attorney in the United States and Canada in Lions Gate Entertainment’s successful multi-national defense of Carl Icahn’s takeover attempt. Savitt is a recognized authority on multi-jurisdictional corporate litigation and has defended numerous corporate merger and class action fiduciary challenges in Delaware, New York, California and elsewhere, including recent successful defenses of the New York Stock Exchange’s merger with the InterContinental Exchange, the going-private sale of Dell, Inc. and the merger between Saks Fifth Avenue and Hudson’s Bay Company.
Savitt graduated magna cum laude from Brown University and received a M.Phil. from Columbia University in European legal history. He graduated from Columbia Law School in 1997, where he was editor-in-chief of the Columbia Law Review. Upon graduation from law school, Savitt served as a law clerk to the Honorable Pierre N. Leval of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit for the 1997 term and to the Honorable Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court of the United States for the October 1998 term. Among other professional recognitions, Savitt has been named by Lawdragon as one of the 500 leading lawyers in the United States, one of the 500 leading global litigators, and as one of 100 Leading AI & Legal Tech Advisors. He is a member of the American Law Institute, the Board of Directors of the New York Legal Aid Society and the Board of Trustees of the Columbia Law Review, Inc., and is a past executive director of Interfaith Hunger Appeal, a New York-based international hunger relief organization.
