As a person who as been described as an "activist investor" by several angry businessmen, I've never seen a shareholder or board member demand anything like tha

As a person who as been described as an "activist investor" by several angry businessmen, I've never seen a shareholder or board member demand anything like that. The only thing that I can think of that would loosely fit your hypothetical scenario would involve a non-human shareholder like a hedge fund making the demand, at the behest of their lawyers. I suppose another potential loose fit would be a fresh business school grad whining about the absence of a "moat" - and this sort of thing being the best that legal could offer in response. In either case both legal and management is to blame: legal for the bad council and management for not pushing back against something so stupid.