Williams Cos. Loses Appeal Over ‘Unprecedented’ 5% Poison Pill

Williams Cos. shareholders secured their victory against the energy company’s unusually restrictive anti-takeover poison pill—triggered if any investor bloc reached a 5% ownership threshold—when Delaware’s top court upheld a decision striking down the defensive measure.

The state’s justices issued a brief order late Wednesday affirming the ruling “on the basis of and for the reasons” given by then-Vice Chancellor Kathaleen S. McCormick, who blocked the poison pill in an 89-page ruling for Delaware’s Chancery Court. She was later elevated to the court’s top post.

McCormick found in February that the Williams board “failed to show that this extreme, unprecedented” poison ...