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The 2026 publication of Thompson’s Mergers and Acquisitions, Law and Finance, 5th Edition equips law students to fully understand the current laws applicable to mergers and the underlying finance and business contexts that lawyers need to understand to advice their clients.  

The Fifth Edition of Mergers and Acquisitions: Law and Finance, written by Robert B. Thompson, a leading scholar and teacher in the field, equips students with the legal rules and economic and financial principles they need to help clients make key strategic choices during an acquisition. Mergers and Acquisitions: Law and Finance offers up-to-date, and rich yet succinct coverage with the perfect mix of theory and practice. 

New to the Fifth Edition: 

● The 2021 anti-activist poison pill case (In re The Williams Company) brings the 40-year evolution of poison pills into the 2020s with a focus on the activist shareholder context of modern takeover contests 

● Linking the introduction to tender offers in Chapter 3 (as an anomaly in Delaware’s preferred approach to trust governance to directors) sets the stage for Chapter 7 and the judicial acceptance of poison pills to address that anomaly; 

● Inclusion of Coster v. UIP, Inc. to illustrate Blasius review being folded into the “new Unocal” that includes a sensitivity to the Blasius concerns; 

● A reorientation of Chapter 6 (formerly Chapter 10) around cleansing and director fiduciary duties in a variety of takeover settings. 

Professors and students will benefit from: 

● Stellar authorship 

● Rich but accessible coverage of valuation 

● Includes notes following each case to understand “The Deal” 

● Materials on insider trading, poison pill, deal protection devices, activist shareholders