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From the Opalesque team:

  On Wednesday SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro indicated an early 2010 focus on increasing shareholder rights (see:  Source), a topic which has not received a great deal of attention since the spring.  Expectations for imminent changes has spurred law firms such as New York-based Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz to advise corporate clients to take pre-emptive takeover steps from possible activist hedge fund firms. 

  "The shareholder base of most large public companies today consists of powerful, sophisticated hedge funds, politically motivated union and public pension funds and other large institutional shareholders with diverse investment time horizons and objectives," the firm states in a November report to clients titled "Some Thoughts for Boards of Directors in 2010,"

  Corporate Boards anxious about the possibility of increased hedge fund activism may also refer to Wachtell Lipton's April 2009 report Dealing With Activist Hedge Funds that responding to hedge fund activist attacks is an art, not a science. 

  The checklist advises corporate boards to follow includes the advanced establishment of dedicated teams to deal with hedge fund managers, including sched......................

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