Hard Negotiating a Business Sale -- Norm Brodsky

This doesn't strike me as a "nibble" but as a total renogotiation at the last minute but with the old deal as a price ceiling. The company was dealing in bad faith the entire time. They called for a close of new issues knowing that they were about to open new ones - but only for themselves. They had apparently done the same things many times to other people in the past.

You can't trust people who treat every interaction as a one-time play of the Prisoner's dilemma. A long negotiation is playing the game many times. If the other guy plays "screw" repeatedly your only option is to play it back or quit playing. (An aside: I once worked for a CEO who was an ex-DEA prosecutor. His entire experience was dealing with criminals once and this mapped very poorly to dealing with employees. I quit.)