Public companies in the US and around the world are increasingly signing settlement agreements as a means to put shareholder activist campaigns to rest.
While companies are allured by the prospect of a quick end to the public side of an activist campaign, settlement agreements often invite new disruptions inside the boardroom and interrupt a board’s ability to concentrate on executing a long-term strategy. Moreover, settlement agreements are of increasingly shorter duration, meaning that the peace boards bargained for often becomes merely a fleeting respite from what is, in fact, a multi-year campaign of the activist.
