A study analyzing trends in deal-protection measures, including no-shops and go-shops, fiduciary outs, matching rights, force-the-vote covenants and break-up fees. The study covers all merger agreements for acquisitions of US public companies for the calendar year 2013 with an equity value at signing of $100 million or more. The study introduces a deal-protection scoring system that measures the impact of the full set of deal protections in each surveyed agreement.