information asymmetry

A situation in which one party has more information than the other. (Richard Luecke, Harvard Business Essentials: Negotiation [Harvard Business Press, 2003], 128)

The following items are tagged information asymmetry.

Status Anxiety

Posted by & filed under Business Negotiations.

Sometimes in negotiation we are forced to deal not only with the issues on the table but also with concerns about status.

One famous instance took place in the late 1980s, when Robert Campeau, head of the Campeau Corporation and then one of Fortune magazine’s “50 Most Fascinating Business People,” tried to acquire Federated Department tores, the parent company of the prestigious department store Bloomingdale’s.

A bidding war over Bloomingdale’s escalated between Campeau and R.H. Macy. Campeau won with an irrationally high offer – but had to declare bankruptcy shortly thereafter.

Not-So-Privileged Information

Posted by & filed under Dispute Resolution.

The law of attorney-client privilege protects certain communications on the assumption that clients will reveal critical information to their attorneys only if they know such disclosures will not harm them in court. Despite the inadmissibility of such evidence, judges can have difficulty disregarding privileged information that sheds light on a case.

Deals

Posted by & filed under DRD Tag Pages.

Deals

HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL (2267)

WINTER 2013

Instructor:
Guhan Subramanian

This advanced negotiation course examines complex corporate deals. Many of the class sessions will be structured around recent or ongoing deals, selected for the complex issues of law and business that they raise. Student teams will research and analyze these transactions in order