Wal-Mart wins lawsuit trying to force them to stop selling guns
Good:
An appeals court ruled Tuesday that Wal-Mart investors don’t have a right to try to stop the company from selling rifles or any other product those shareholders may think is socially destructive.
April 16th, 2015 at 9:48 am
Hmmm. Not sure I agree. If a majority of the shareholders voted against selling certain products, I would think that that should result in a change in corporate policy.
Anyone else?
April 16th, 2015 at 2:06 pm
… surprising absolutely nobody.
Mike: Oh, the Court wasn’t saying a majority vote didn’t have that power; if they could get even a serious plurality of shares, nobody’d deny them the ability to make the Board do a vote on the issue.
The court said (extrapolating, since the opinion isn’t released) that a mere 3,500 shares was not enough for force the Board to vote on it and interfere with ordinary business operation; it was a nuisance operation and everybody knew it.
April 16th, 2015 at 5:08 pm
Sig — thanks for the interpretation. I was too lazy to read the entire article, but I had been following the case in the CriminalLiberalMedia.
Those nuisance actions by a tiny minority of shareholders are a common curse at most corporate meetings.
April 17th, 2015 at 8:51 am
Idiot shareholders don’t understand, or don’t care, that if they mess with the “corporate veil”, they could open themselves and other shareholders to personal liability for anything ranging from workmens compensation to products liability.