미국 델라웨어 州 회사법상의 포이즌 필에 관한 연구

A hostile merger and acquisition (M&A) certainly has social value, apart from the immediate benefits it confers on the shareholders of the target company. First, it drives senior management towards operational efficiency by keeping open the possibility of their replacement. Second, an M&A transaction is a practical alternative to an impending bankruptcy and serves to reduce social costs and agency costs for shareholders. In conclusion, from the perspective of a society as a whole, it is a means of improving efficiency by transferring the ownership of resources. A poison pill is a defense mechanism that makes an M&A transaction less appealing by lowering the value of the target corporations’ shares after a hostile M&A. For large public corporations in the United State, it has become the most favored method of protecting management rights, and it is a highly efficient, low-cost method of scuttling a hostile M&A bid. As per the laws in the United States, the principles of the poison pill favor the board of directors, which is irrational as it delegates legal authority to the boards which is clearly a case of conflict of interest. In Delaware, corporate law regarding poison pills is uniformly applicable to both large, public corporations and small, closed companies. In this context, it is felt that application of this law, in the past or the present, can only be justified for small, closed corporations. As the principles of a poison pill favor the board of directors, it harms the interest of the shareholders of the corporation by excluding shareholders and creating unnecessary agency costs. In addition to being unfair and unjust, it prevents the efficient use of resources and revitalization of the corporation. In future, shareholders in the U.S. should have the right to decide about poison pills and so called “M&A committee” should be constituted to consider and implement this solution.