In 1997 a small group of animal rights protesters devised a strategy of legal and illegal protests that almost closed down one of Europe's largest animal testing firms, Huntingdon Life Science (HLS). The animal rights protesters successfully disrupted the operations of HLS and severed its links with some of the world's largest financial institutions. This case study examines the “protest game” that was played between the animal rights protesters, HLS, and its business partners. In the first section, I describe the interactions between the parties to the dispute, applying negotiation analytic concepts to better explicate the structure of the game, the alternatives available to the players, and the psychological heuristics and biases that influenced decision making. The conclusion suggests alternative ways in which the protesters and the life sciences industry could resolve the dispute over the ethics and cruelty of animal testing.

This essay provides an empirical analysis of Pareto‐efficiency and joint feasibility in multiparty contexts. In the two multiparty negotiations studied, approximately half the outcomes are Pareto‐efficient whereas less than one per cent of the outcomes are jointly feasible. The importance of these findings for prescriptive negotiation advice is discussed, and directions for future research are proposed.