Ethical Issues on Mergers & Acquisitions

In countries all around the globe, mergers and acquisitions play a key role in increasing corporate value while corporate restructuring serves to reallocate assets to their highest valued uses. This paper reviews the ethical issues on hostile takeovers and applies ethical theory to some of the defensive tactics that have been used to explore unwanted takeovers. The merger mania put top corporate management on the defensive as predators sought takeover targets. Hostile takeover activity has grown up in recent years, for a variety of reasons, but the ethical issues surrounding acquisitions and mergers and the ethically questionable conduct that is often involved remain as relevant as ever.