A shareholder that owns any amount (no matter how small) of any publicly traded company has the right to bring a lawsuit after an announced deal that may be unfair. Very often the shareholders are the "little guys" that want to bring transparency to the entire deal process. Ultimately, it is the SHAREHOLDERS (no matter how big or how small) that own a company, and a merger and acquisition lawsuit helps remind management of just that fact.

According to the Harvard Management Update, "Most [mergers] fail to add shareholder value-indeed, post-merger, two-thirds of the newly formed companies perform well below the industry average."

Lead by overcompensated, corporate private jet traveling executives, many companies involved in mergers and acquisitions often seem to forget that they ultimately answer to ALL shareholders, and must always act in the shareholders' best interests.

Common ways that the shareholders are sometimes "screwed over" by management in mergers and acquisitions include:

• Unfair share price, "too low price" offers.
• Barriers erected by management to block other bidders.
• Insider and interested party "sweet heart" deals by management to cash out.
• Unfair deal-making process that constitutes a breach of fiduciary duties to shareholders.
• Failure to offer full and fair disclosures of all facts.

How merger and acquisition lawsuits protect shareholder rights

Merger and acquisition lawsuits seek to protect all shareholders' rights by giving everyone a seat at the table during the deal process. All too often, M&A deals are conducted in opaque backroom deals by a "good old boy" network of corporate chieftans that seem to forget about their duty to look out for the interests of the shareholders.

Merger and acquisition lawsuits help make sure that shareholders know exactly what is going on with THEIR company, and ensure that the M&A deal is fair and equitable to all of the shareholders.