Hedge fund SAC Capital and analysts from Gradient Analytics and Banc of America face charges of stock price manipulation from Biovail, a Canadian pharmaceutical company. Gradient and BofA produced negative reports on Biovail's earnings quality. At the same time, SAC built a large short position in the stock. The defendants must consider specific and general strategic responses to these allegations.

Involves the decision by the CEO of EMC Corp. whether to acquire VMware, a small software firm in California that makes virtualization software. Among the factors to be considered are a pending patent case involving WMare and Microsoft and integration challenges associated with EMC's decision to spend $3 billion to acquire two other software firms based in California. Also, raises the issues about deal protection devices.