If you guessed A, you’d be in jail. The loophole is **C**, the "Reverse Acqui-Hire." Instead of buying the company, they pay a massive licensing fee to satisfy investors, then hire 90% of the staff. The startup technically still exists as a hollow "zombie" entity. No merger review is triggered. It proves the desperation. Companies are willing to pay hundreds of millions not for a product, but just to bypass the red tape and keep the Hamster Wheel spinning for one more quarter.