IBM Lets Sun Set (Linux Journal)

I worked for a company that pulled a poison-pill trick like this. But it was a "this poison wears off" trick. Basically, under UK law, if staff are let go they HAVE to be given a pay-off.

This company I worked for wanted to upset a hostile take-over, because it knew the predator was an asset stripper and wanted to get rid of a lot of the staff. So the company unilaterally modified all employment contracts from the statutory minimum to "one (or it might have been two!) month's pay per year's service". All of a sudden, the cost to the predator of sacking staff doubled or more ...

But the change was only to then-current contracts, so a few years on and a bit of staff turnover later, the poison pill started wearing off.

Cheers,
Wol