No, it has a legal obligation to do what (the majority of) its shareholders say. If they tell it to dance a jig and give all its assets to the Flat Earth Societ

No, it has a legal obligation to do what (the majority of) its shareholders say. If they tell it to dance a jig and give all its assets to the Flat Earth Society, it’s obliged. Maximizing shareholder value in the way that’s usually meant is a business school doctrine, not a legal doctrine. (Edit: on second thought, it is a legal doctrine, just not the legal doctrine.) See, for example, http://www.virginialawbusrev.org/VLBR3-1pdfs/Stout.pdf http://www.virginialawbusrev.org/VLBR3-1pdfs/Stout.pdf : “Dodge v. Ford is a mistake, a judicial “sport,” a doctrinal oddity largely irrelevant to corporate law and corporate practice. What is more, courts and legislatures alike treat it as irrelevant. […] Only laypersons and (more disturbingly) many law professors continue to rely on Dodge v. Ford.”