160 Acquisition Deals and Counting, Since 2010.

[ by Melanie Gretchen ]

Google Inc is installing one of its top lawyers as head of the firm's in-house mergers and acquisitions group.  Don Harrison is replacing David Lawee, whose tenure at Google has been marked by hits and misses.  One miss was the acquisition of Slide, a social media company, which the company disposed of just one year after paying $179 million to acquire it.

The change is critically important for the firm and,i in many ways, calls for someone with legal expertise:

• Since 2010, Google has struck more than 160 deals to acquire either companies and/or assets, to great effect.   Many of its most popular products were produced by companies or are based on technology that Google acquired - including its online maps and Android mobile software.  Google seeming to remain on a mission to expand its empire at every opportunity.

• Google remains embroiled in regulatory fights throughout the world over such issues as privacy policies, search methodologies, and data collection - including the data picked up while company staffers collect street views for the Google Maps.  It's often been noted that the firm - which seemingly is on pace to drive through every neighborhood of every country in the world - has been accused by its host country of eavesdropping on the wifi signals emanating from businesses and private homes - something they can do without detection.

Harrison Into the Fire.   Don Harrison expects to face antitrust investigations by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the European Commission (EC), which has spent months on regulatory reviews of recent Google acquisitions.  Yet, since joining Google more than 5 years ago, Harrison has completed over 70 deals at the company - so he's intimately familiar with the company's divisions and Google's M&A process.  He currently serves as deputy general counsel.

For further details, go to [Reuters, 12/7/12].