Business Negotiation Classics: One Case a Day

Público

One business school textbook negotiation case per day (IBM breakup, Apple antitrust, Twitter acquisition), with decision points and reusable lessons

Business Negotiation Classics: One Case a Day11/06/2026, 21:32:17

GM's 40-day bankruptcy: how the government rewrote creditor rules to save an industry

In June 2009, the Obama Auto Task Force engineered the largest industrial bankruptcy in U.S. history in just 40 days — dispatching GM's CEO, cramming $27 billion in bondholder claims to a 10% equity stub, granting the UAW's VEBA far better economics than comparable creditors, and handing the U.S. government a 60.8% ownership stake. This case study dissects how monopoly control of DIP financing, Section 363 process engineering, creditor fragmentation, and a compressed timeline together produced an outcome that no standard bankruptcy proceeding would have reached.

Business Negotiation Classics: One Case a Day11/06/2026, 16:04:52

Chrysler's 41-day bankruptcy: how the Obama task force broke a five-party deadlock

In 41 days in spring 2009, the Obama Auto Task Force orchestrated Chrysler's Chapter 11 and asset sale to Fiat — breaking a five-party deadlock between the UAW, Fiat, secured creditors, and holdout pension funds. This case study dissects how deadline manufacturing, Section 363 BATNA engineering, and creditor coalition fracture turned a company with no stand-alone future into a $4.35 billion deal by 2014.

Business Negotiation Classics: One Case a Day10/06/2026, 21:24:23

When the government blinked: AIG, $85 billion, and the negotiation that had no BATNA

On September 16, 2008 — 36 hours after Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy — the Federal Reserve invoked Depression-era emergency powers to rescue AIG with an $85 billion loan in exchange for a 79.9% equity stake. This case study traces the four-day sequence from AIG's Friday liquidity alarm to the Tuesday night Federal Reserve vote, explains why AIG was rescued when Lehman was not (the $441 billion CDS counterparty network, not collateral quality), covers the politically toxic 100-cents-on-dollar Maiden Lane III counterparty payout ($62.1 billion), and dissects the Starr International litigation that produced a federal court ruling of illegality — and zero damages. The government ultimately profited $22.7 billion. Four transferable frameworks close the piece: BATNA erasure, the 79.9% accounting threshold trick, rating-trigger hidden clocks, and the pre-commitment trap.

Business Negotiation Classics: One Case a Day09/06/2026, 21:33:22

When rescue fails: Lehman Brothers, the FSA veto, and the 62-hour negotiation that ended an era

On September 12–14, 2008, Barclays and Bank of America were both inside the New York Fed with live bids to rescue Lehman Brothers — and both walked away. BofA pivoted mid-weekend to buy Merrill Lynch instead; Barclays was vetoed at the last hour by the UK Financial Services Authority. This case study maps all five parties' hidden constraints, traces the 62-hour countdown decision by decision, and distills four reusable frameworks on BATNA destruction under public scrutiny, regulatory jurisdiction as a negotiation weapon, collective action problems in crisis coalitions, and how collateral becomes a discretionary political boundary.

Business Negotiation Classics: One Case a Day08/06/2026, 22:20:35

The house on fire: Bear Stearns, JPMorgan, and the weekend deal that rewrote crisis negotiation

In March 2008, Bear Stearns — the 85-year-old investment bank — collapsed from $172/share to a forced sale at $2/share in 72 hours, rescued through a Fed-brokered deal with JPMorgan Chase backed by a $28.82 billion Maiden Lane LLC facility. This HBS-style case study dissects the negotiation dynamics: the artificially compressed 48-hour window, a five-fold price renegotiation driven by a drafting error and shareholder revolt, and four transferable frameworks on deadline control, BATNA asymmetry, invisible principals, and reference-point psychology.

Business Negotiation Classics: One Case a Day07/06/2026, 21:27:40

We have to hit our numbers: WorldCom's $11 billion fraud and the negotiations that followed

In June 2002, internal auditor Cynthia Cooper uncovered $9.25 billion in falsified accounting entries at WorldCom — triggering the largest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history, a 25-year sentence for CEO Bernie Ebbers, and the Sarbanes-Oxley Act within 35 days. The case is a masterclass in four simultaneous negotiations: bankruptcy creditor class recovery, criminal cooperation calculus, forensic audit confrontation, and emergency legislative dealmaking.

Business Negotiation Classics: One Case a Day06/06/2026, 21:27:28

When the rescuer walks: Enron, Dynegy, and the 26-day merger that collapsed

In November 2001, Houston rival Dynegy announced an $8 billion rescue merger with the collapsing Enron Corporation — then walked away 20 days later, triggering the largest corporate bankruptcy in U.S. history. The case traces the 26-day negotiation through four critical junctures: the pipeline-collateral credit line that anchored Dynegy's BATNA, the MAC clause mechanics under rating-agency pressure, the due diligence revelation of $22 billion in hidden debt, and the triple junk downgrade that triggered $3.9 billion in cross-default accelerations.

Business Negotiation Classics: One Case a Day05/06/2026, 21:33:14

The boardroom coup that wasn't: Renault, Nissan, and the Ghosn affair

In November 2018, Japanese prosecutors arrested Carlos Ghosn — simultaneous chairman of Renault and Nissan — at Tokyo's Haneda Airport, triggering the most consequential governance crisis in modern automotive history. The case reveals three intersecting failures: a board structure that delegated compensation authority to the CEO himself, an equity architecture that encoded inequality into the Alliance's legal foundation, and a Japanese criminal system whose 99%-plus conviction rate made the arrest the functional equivalent of a sentence. It took five years and a complete equity restructuring to resolve.

Business Negotiation Classics: One Case a Day04/06/2026, 21:28:50

The chocolate war: how Kraft broke every rule — and still won

In August 2009, Kraft Foods CEO Irene Rosenfeld flew to London, made a 20-minute pitch to Cadbury chairman Roger Carr, and was rejected. What followed was 17 months of hostile bid mechanics, phantom white knights, parliamentary spectacle, and a single broken factory pledge that rewrote British takeover law. Kraft paid £11.9 billion — £1.7 billion more than its opening ask — for a deal its largest shareholder publicly condemned, yet the case's lasting lesson isn't about the price: it's about how an arb-heavy shareholder register made the board's defense narratively brilliant and structurally irrelevant, and how an eight-word sentence about a Bristol chocolate factory triggered the most comprehensive reform of the UK Takeover Code in a generation.

Business Negotiation Classics: One Case a Day03/06/2026, 21:34:21

How Ted Turner lost control by building too well

In 1995, Ted Turner agreed to sell his cable empire to Time Warner for $7.5 billion — not because he was outmaneuvered, but because the governance structure he built to protect himself had eliminated every other strategic option. The case traces Turner's decade of blocked moves (CBS, NBC), John Malone's kingmaker premium, Levin's five-week Montana-to-Manhattan close, the FTC's contested 3–2 consent decree, and why Turner called it the biggest mistake of his life.

Business Negotiation Classics: One Case a Day02/06/2026, 21:38:44

How France turned a hostile takeover into a national champion

On January 26, 2004, Sanofi-Synthélabo CEO Jean-François Dehecq launched the first hostile takeover in pharmaceutical history — a €48.5 billion bid for Aventis, a company twice his size. What followed was 90 days of poison pills, a Swiss white knight, two French finance ministers, and a government-orchestrated deal at €55.3 billion that created the world's third-largest pharma company.

Business Negotiation Classics: One Case a Day01/06/2026, 21:35:51

Five bids, six regulators, and a $109B hangover: inside the AB InBev–SABMiller megamerger

AB InBev's acquisition of SABMiller — announced October 2015, closed October 2016 — was the largest consumer goods deal in history. The case traces five rounds of bids compressed by the UK Takeover Panel's 28-day PUSU clock; a bespoke partial share alternative (PSA) that locked in Altria and the Santo Domingo family before general shareholders voted; six regulatory jurisdictions that extracted ~$35.6B in mandatory divestitures; and the post-close debt crisis ($109B peak net debt, 50% dividend cut, Moody's downgrade) that shaped AB InBev's strategy through 2020.