Editing Shareholder rights plan (section)

==== Back-end rights plan ====
Under this scenario, the target company re-phases all its employees' stock-option grants to ensure they immediately become vested if the company is taken over. Many employees can then exercise their options and then dump the stocks. With the release of the "golden handcuffs", many discontented employees may quit immediately after having cashed in their stock options. This poison pill is designed to create an exodus of talented employees, reducing the corporate value as a target. In many high-tech businesses, attrition of talented human resources may result in a diluted or empty shell being left behind for the new owner.

For instance, [[PeopleSoft]] guaranteed its customers in June 2003 that if it were acquired within two years, presumably by its rival Oracle, and product support were reduced within four years, its customers would receive a refund of between two and five times the fees they had paid for their PeopleSoft software licenses. While the acquisition ultimately prevailed, the hypothetical cost to Oracle was valued at as much as US$1.5 billion.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Leyden |first=John |date=2003-11-11 |title=Oracle chokes on PeopleSoft's poison pill |url=http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/11/11/oracle_chokes_on_peoplesofts_poison/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171114074757/http://www.theregister.co.uk/2003/11/11/oracle_chokes_on_peoplesofts_poison/ |archive-date=2017-11-14 |work=[[The Register]]}}</ref>