The Hostile Poison Pill

Whether one ascribes to the agency theory of shareholder primacy or the contractarian theory of director primacy, boards of directors have great discretion in determining whether, when, and how to sell the corporation. Defensive tactics, like poison pills, can be tools in wielding that discretion in the service of creating shareholder value. However, a poison pill designed either to oppress a minority shareholder, as in eBay v. Newmark,[1] or to minimize the impact of activist shareholders, as in Versata Enterprises, Inc. v. Selectica, Inc.,[2] seems to exceed the “maximum dosage” of the pill.