[mosta]

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He can make a bid, that is fine. It is only illegal if he has no intention to actually buy the company, or if he tells his friends that he is going to make a bid before he does it, then they act on that information. If he had every intention of buying it if the shareholders accepted, I think he will be ok. To prove that he knew that someone else would act on information he provided may be tough.

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My hunch that I'd wager on is he traded no stock and tipped no one and will walk away clear and clean. He's not that dumb and it's not worth it. (you could say the same was true of martha and look at her, but I doubt martha really got it and she wasn't an archtect as doyle would have to be.)

What's the legal basis for charging someone with an insincere takeover bid? I'm curious because I just finished a securities reg class (like 2 days ago) and, because I haven't had M&A, I wasn't able to get beyond the 10b-5 insider trading issue (or section 14 tender violations if it had been that). In general contract terms if you make an offer you can withdraw it before it is accepted. and an acquisition couldn't be accepted until the share holders vote on it. (I imagine a bid would normally be kept open as an optoin for a period to allow you to go through the process without risk of it being pointless?) but I understand you don't necessarily want people to be able to monkey around with fake bids. Is this federal statuory law--which?--or Delaware? ... ? tx.