Icahn goes to court, alleging Forest Labs has "poison pill" built into major license accord

According to billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who engaged in a long-running bitter proxy battle trying to gain greater control over Forest Laboratories (NYSE: FRX) by nominating board directors (The Pharma Letters passim), the US drugmaker has publicly filed a major licensing agreement that it entered into with Cypress Bioscience in 2004.

That agreement contains a change of control provision that allows the license to be voided by Cypress if there is a change of control at Forest that is not approved in advance by the Forest board, irrespective of whether or not that change of control impairs Cypress, which is a takeover shield or “poison pill” action.