Date: May 25, 2016
Wendy Berman and Jonathan Wansbrough Quoted in Financial
Post on Poison Pills
Publish: 07/31/2014
A case note by Wendy Berman and Jonathan Wansbrough is quoted in an article titled "Augusta Decision is
No Prescription for Use of Poison Pills" by Drew Hasselback in the July 30, 2014, edition of the Financial Post.
Writes Drew:
The recent August Recourse Corp. case shows that Canadian securities regulators still find the use of
poison pill takeover defence tough to swallow ... [t]he Augusta pill was allowed to stand for a long time
due to the unique circumstances of that case. Among those, Augusta shareholders approved the
shareholder rights plan (SPR) in a vote held after HudBay announced its bid.
"A defining feature of this case was that an absolute majority of shareholders of Augusta voted to
maintain the SRP during the currency of HudBay's bid, with full knowledge that the bid may be
impeded," write Wendy Berman and Jonathan Wansbrough of Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP in a note
on the case.
If there's a practical takeaway from the Augusta case, that's it. In the face of a hostile bid, a target
company's board should set up a poison pill, then get shareholders to ratify it with a vote.
To read the full article, please click here.