In one of what surely will be a long list of footnotes to the conclusion of the nation’s largest utility bankruptcy, PG&E Corp. announced late Monday that a creation of California’s energy crisis in late 2000, a “shareholder rights plan,” automatically expired with the emergence from Chapter 11 bankruptcy by the holding company’s utility, Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

PG&E said its board of directors voted last February to terminate the so-called rights plan — originally intended to protect shareholders in the event PG&E Corp. were to be presented with what it considered an “inadequate offer (to buy the company) or coercive or unfair takeover tactics” — on the utility’s effective date for its reorganization plan.

The holding company said the expiration of the plan is a response by the company to shareholders who supported a termination proposal at PG&E’s annual meeting last year. “It is also a response to the improved financial and regulatory circumstances arising from the utility’s exit from Chapter 11,” the company said.

PG&E’s board originally adopted the takeover defense mechanism in December 2000, four months before the utility filed for Chapter 11 protection on April 6, 2001.

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