Chris Baugher

Mergers and Acquisitions

• Represented Total System Services (TSYS) in its $1.05 billion acquisition of Cayan, a payment technology company with operations in the U.S. and Northern Ireland.
• Led Alston & Bird’s representation of FleetCor’s $3.4 billion merger with Comdata.
• Advised Sterling Payment Technologies LLC, an integrated payments provider, on its sale to EVO Payments International.
• Represented FleetCor in its acquisition of Cambridge Mercantile Corp., a Canadian business-to-business payments company, for approximately US$650 million.
• Negotiated the sale of a U.S.-based, family-owned company to a Dutch public company for $320 million.
• Represented payment software and security provider TrustCommerce in its sale to private equity firm Waud Capital.
• Advised an early-stage innovative retail services company with operations in North America and China in its sale to a private equity buyer for more than $75 million.
• Represented NOVA Corporation in a $2.1 billion merger with U.S. Bancorp

Co-branded Card Programs and Strategic Alliances

• Advised IKEA in launching a de novo consumer finance program and negotiated its co-branded card program with Alliance Data Systems and its incentive agreement with Visa.
• Led Alston & Bird’s representation of United Airlines Inc. in negotiating its co-branded card program with a division of JPMorgan Chase & Co., its card acceptance agreement with Chase Paymentech, and its incentive agreement with Visa.

Chris Baugher is a co-leader of Alston & Bird’s Payments & Fintech Group and advises on transactions involving payment systems participants and the financial technology industry. In particular, Chris regularly represents payment processors, sophisticated merchants, and financial institutions in the following matters:

Payment Processors

• Mergers, acquisitions, and dispositions of operating companies, payment technology assets, and credit card portfolios.
• International expansion initiatives, joint ventures, and strategic alliances in the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

Merchants

• Co-branded credit card programs, private label card alliances, payment network agreements, and card acceptance agreements.
• Credit card data security matters and data breach response.

Financial Institutions

• Merchant services alliances, card processing arrangements, and new payment technology M&A.
• Payments regulatory matters.

Chris is dual-qualified as a Georgia attorney and a solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales. He previously served as the dedicated on-site legal counsel in Dublin, Ireland for a client that is one of the leading merchant acquirers in Europe. He has also spent a significant amount of time based in Brussels, Belgium assisting clients in the financial technology industry with cross-border transactions and matters related to credit card network membership and compliance.

He has been recognized as a member of “Georgia’s Legal Elite” by Georgia Trend magazine and has been listed in The Best Lawyers in America© since 2016.

Bar Admissions

• Georgia
• Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales

Education

• University of Virginia (J.D., 1998)
• Wake Forest University (B.A., 1992)