2003 House Bill 4764 ↩

Senate Roll Call 426: Passed

To clarify a provision of Michigan’s 1988 anti-corporate takeover law which prohibits groups of shareholders in a publicly traded company from pooling their voting rights when a struggle for corporate control is underway. The law was intended to apply only to the potential buyer of a company, but a recent court ruling applied it to the original owners as well. The bill would have the effect of only applying the law to the potential buyer, and not the original owners of the company. The bill was introduced at the same time that the Indianapolis-based Simon Property Group is attempting to acquire Taubman Centers, which owns shopping malls, and would allow Taubman to defeat the acquisition. See also Senate Bill 218.