Samuel C. Thompson Jr.
Arthur Weiss Distinguished Faculty Scholar, Professor of Law, and
Director, Penn State's Center for the Study of Mergers & Acquisitions
Education:
LL.M., New York University (Taxation)
J.D., University of Pennsylvania
M.A., University of Pennsylvania (Business and Applied Economics)
B.S., West Chester University
Professor Samuel Thompson directs Penn State’s Center for the Study of Mergers and Acquisitions. The Center examines corporate, securities, tax, antitrust, and other legal and economic issues that arise in mergers and acquisitions and hosts continuing legal education programs addressing these issues. The Center regularly co-sponsors with the New York City Bar annual institutes on Corporate, Securities, and Related Aspects of Mergers and Acquisitions.
Professor Thompson, who previously was a professor of law at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law and director of the UCLA Law Center for the Study of Mergers and Acquisitions, is the author of sixteen books and more than seventy-five articles on corporate and international tax, corporate governance, and antitrust law. His teaching interests focus on the corporate, securities, tax, and antitrust aspects of mergers and acquisitions as well as international tax, investment banking, taxation of business entities, and economic growth policy.
Throughout his distinguished career, Professor Thompson has held a number of notable positions, such as head of the tax department of Schiff Hardin & Waite in Chicago; tax policy advisor, on behalf of the U.S. Treasury Tax Assistance Office, to the South African Ministry of Finance in Pretoria, South Africa; Attorney Fellow in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Merger and Acquisitions Office; consultant on merger and acquisition issues to the Federal Trade Commission; and professor in residence at the European Commission’s Antitrust Merger Taskforce in Brussels. On several occasions he has testified about tax policy before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means and the House Judiciary Committee. He formerly served as dean of the University of Miami School of Law and has been a professor and distinguished visiting professor at the University of Virginia School of Law and the Jacquin D. Bierman Visiting Professor of Taxation at Yale Law School.
As a law student, Professor Thompson worked on a university-sponsored civil rights project near Leland, Mississippi, before beginning service as an officer in the United States Marine Corps, where he rose to captain and received the Navy Commendation Medal for service in Vietnam. He played varsity football at his undergraduate school, West Chester University.
Contact Information:
E-mail: sct13@psu.edu
Phone: (814) 865-9029
Principal Office: University Park
Selected Publications:
Books
Mergers, Acquisitions and Tender Offers: Law and Strategies (PLI 2010).
Business Planning for Mergers and Acquisitions 3d ed. (2008).
U.S. International Tax Planning and Policy: Including Cross-Border Mergers and Acquisitions (2007).
Corporate Taxation through the Lens of Mergers & Acquisitions (2005) (2006 Supp.).
Citizen's Guide to U.S. Economic Growth, and to the Bush-Kerry Economic Debate (2004).
A Practitioner's Guide to the Economics of the Antitrust Merger Guidelines (1997).
Articles
How Should Congress React to Bush's Tax Proposals? 114 Tax Notes 1243 (2007).
Despite Widespread Opposition, Congress Should Codify the Economic Substance Doctrine, 110 Tax Notes 781 (2006).
