"Exactly. So what legal remedies are there? How do you squelch a takeover program that's not even against the law?"
"That's your specialty, counselor, or so I hear."
"Jack, be realistic. We can expose this thing, maybe even try and lean on Tokyo to back off, but aside from shutting down trading there's no legal way to actually stop Matsuo Noda from buying whatever he likes. You can't shut Japanese investors out of Wall Street. There'd be a riot downtown. We're talking about the open market here, not some inside deal."
"Forget legalities." He scowled. "Tell me how your damned corporate raiders go about shenanigans that don't quite match the letter of the law."
"Jack, I've officially quit the business. Retired. Guess you hadn't heard."
"That's what you think. You just got un-retired. As of this moment. Now give me one of those high-priced consultations you're so famous for."
"For you, Jack." I looked him over. "One last play. Trouble is, there's not much that's do-able, at least on short notice."
"You say 'not much.' Which means there's something."
"Well, one possibility might be to try and slow him down
some, make him think twice, say, by punching up the prices of the stocks he's aiming at. Make them less of a bargain."