I worked at a big company that was being acquired. The bigger acquiring company needed our company to sell off some divisions to avoid regulatory issues. So we were in this "going to be acquired.. one day" phase for like 18 months.

In the meantime our company actually had to tell the a subsidiary of bigger acquiring company.... to sort of shove off on a partnership we had with them.

This subsidiary was crap and they were not holding up their end of the partnership. It was reiterated many times that "while we will likely be acquired by their parent company our job is to operate in the interest of our current stockholders and that best interest is to no longer work with <subsidiary>".

No word if the acquiring company ever responded negatively. By all accounts they understood (and really had a bigger picture in mind).

That situation seemed pretty logical to me.