The Killer Non-Acquisition

We talked last week about fake mergers and acquisitions. That is, we talked about situations in which a big company might pretend to want to buy another company — might sign a letter of intent, do due diligence, negotiate a deal, maybe even sign a merger agreement — without actually intending to close the deal. The big company might want to crush competition, and the efficient way to crush a competitor might not be to buy it, but to pretend to buy it. If you enter into exclusive merger negotiations with a smaller company, then:

This generally seems implausible to me, but there are at least alleged examples: Phillips 66 Co. was accused of doing something like this to Propel Fuels Inc. in 2024, Novo Nordisk A/S was accused of doing something like this to Metsera Inc. in 2025, and just this month Post Road Group was accused of doing something like this to Planet Networks Inc. Maybe this is a thing? Maybe companies regularly enter into fake merger deals to stifle competition?