Re:Apple CEO backs China’s ‘open’ Internet vision as censors...
by smsm42 on Tuesday December 05, 2017 @05:02PM
(#15856454)
> Tim Cook has fiduciary duty to his shareholders who want to sell in China as its big market and lot of money to be made.
The "profit maximization duty" is a myth. There's no such duty and as long as the management acts in the interests of the company, with very wide margin (basically, everything that is not explicitly designed to hurt the company and benefit themselves, such as stealing company funds to private account) - they are legally fine. Shareholders can, in general, remove management if they don't like it, but prosecuting management for a business decision that did not immediately increase profit would be extremely hard.
In particular, the management is fully free (at least doesn't have legal duty to avoid it) to not help censorship in China, even if doing so would bring profit. There is no "duty" to grab every profitable opportunity regardless of morals.
The "profit maximization duty" is a myth. There's no such duty and as long as the management acts in the interests of the company, with very wide margin (basically, everything that is not explicitly designed to hurt the company and benefit themselves, such as stealing company funds to private account) - they are legally fine. Shareholders can, in general, remove management if they don't like it, but prosecuting management for a business decision that did not immediately increase profit would be extremely hard.
In particular, the management is fully free (at least doesn't have legal duty to avoid it) to not help censorship in China, even if doing so would bring profit. There is no "duty" to grab every profitable opportunity regardless of morals.