# kaal:claim:5583610-001

**Claim.** Traditional board defenses such as staggered boards and poison pills protect incumbent boards at the cost of value creation and reduce board accountability to shareholders, even when they succeed in defeating an activist campaign.

**Type.** failure  **Support.** argued

**Holds when.**

- conventional takeover and activism defenses
- U.S. public companies

**Source quote.**

> Staggered boards and poison pills are examples of defenses that frequently shield boards at the price of value generation and lessen accountability to shareholders.

**From.** Wulf A. Kaal, *Liquid Equity Rewards in Corporate America* (2025), 1. Introduction, page 4

**Cite as.** Wulf A. Kaal, Liquid Equity Rewards in Corporate America (2025). SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=5583610

**Verify.** sha256 of source PDF `2d73609d95ddb1573acc2a9e7af617fbe6283d6e591deb6317f6d5d804517c62` at https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wulfkaal/Academic-Papers/main/papers/pdf/Kaal%20-%202025%20-%20Liquid%20Equity%20Rewards%20in%20Corporate%20America.pdf

**Failure mode.** defense-driven entrenchment  (family: agency-cost-and-managerial-opportunism)

**Topics.** corporate-governance

**Keywords.** board-defenses, entrenchment, poison-pills, staggered-boards, shareholder-accountability

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