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Meta shareholders look to haul CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg to court
- v5v3 1y agoWow. Go Meta shareholders!!
- tester756 1y agoMeta's stock did 26x since 2012, they're already winning
- lenerdenator 1y ago"We knowingly bought into a scheme where one man - the one we're suing - has 51% of the voting power on all corporate affairs. We think he screwed up and owes us money. Can you help us?" - the shareholders to the Delaware CoC, in effect. Remember: the people who work for these shareholders - most of which are institutional investors, not individuals - went to exclusive schools and make more in bonuses than you will in a lifetime of work, at least if you're the average American.
- SoftTalker 1y ago[flagged]
- MegaButts 1y agoThere are so many reasons to hate Zuck. But bringing up something he said as a teenager in a private conversation is one of the dumbest reasons.
- pbalau 1y agoIs there any proof that he said that, apart the movie? I'm not arguing he didn't, but the only place I've found to support that is the movie. I didn't try very hard either...
- triceratops 1y agoWas that in the movie? I thought it came from emails released in court.
- ceejayoz 1y agoYes, he said (well, typed) it. https://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-ims-wont-help-facebooks-privacy-problems-2010-5 https://www.businessinsider.com/well-these-new-zuckerberg-im...
- pbalau 1y agoThanks for the link, but I can read that, too many intrusive ads. I'll give it a go when I get to a computer.
- buildsjets 1y agoGoalpost mover.
- isx726552 1y agoIt was a comment revealing his attitude towards what would soon become his customers in a globally-impactful business over which he has sole control. It’s more relevant than ever today.
- gnopgnip 1y agoThe company, board of directors still owes a fiduciary duty to minority shareholders. Having 51% of voting control doesn't change that.
- philipov 1y agoIf you don't like how a company is being managed, your recourse is to pull your investment.
- jncfhnb 1y agoYou can also work collectively with other shareholders to directly impact the board
- gnopgnip 1y agoThat wouldn't make the investors whole for past violations, which is why they are suing for breach of fiduciary duty.
- philipov 1y agoExcept that there are limits on fiduciary duty. It should not be confused for a right to earn money. Losing money on a bad investment is part of the game. The duty that they have is to carry out the terms of the investment prospectus and nothing more.
- bryanlarsen 1y agoShareholders have the right to not get lied to by executives. The SEC forces companies to put lots of stuff into their annual reports, giving companies lots of opportunities to lie to shareholders. Companies basically write "we aren't doing anything morally ambiguous" in their annual reports, almost always lying when they do so. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-26/everything-everywhere-is-securities-fraud https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-26/everyt...
- darth_avocado 1y ago
- palmotea 1y ago> Remember: the people who work for these shareholders - most of which are institutional investors, not individuals - went to exclusive schools and make more in bonuses than you will in a lifetime of work, at least if you're the average American. So? What's your point? We should root for Zuckerberg because the people who are suing him are rich? Zuckerberg is an order of magnitude worse in all those resentment metrics you list than the people who are suing him.
- cindyllm 1y ago[dead]
- orochimaaru 1y agoNot true. These are people who are likely responsible for global economic meltdowns and then asking for handouts (anyone remember 2008). Zuck isn’t making anyone’s life harder without them signing into his platforms. Just stay off of them if you don’t like zuck. But you can’t stay off the financial system. So, creepy as zuck maybe, I think he is impact for evil is a whole lot less.
- lenerdenator 1y agoMy point is that everyone involved is awful and that none of this should happen in a remotely sane society. What kind of corporate governance model allows for a dictatorship? Why aren't the shareholders just selling if they think they were wronged the better part of a decade ago? Because we're insane. Maybe they're filing the suit out of the fiduciary duty to their fund members. Worst-case scenario, it goes nowhere. Best-case scenario, they get money out of Meta. Now, they're doing this off the backs of the people of Delaware, but whatever.
- v5v3 1y agoHave you worked in this area? I have worked with asset managers, employees come from all around the world and vary in background. Yes there will be a weighting to the more privileged kids but most of the jobs don't make big bonuses. That's just the Sales leads and funds managers. But it's irrelevant. As the institutional investors who invest are doing so for their underlying investors e.g. Pension Funds. The people suing, if win, will report higher results and their bonuses will be higher but so will the underlying investors.
- yogurtboy 1y agoDoes anybody with knowledge of the process know if this can be a path to holding companies liable for the private data they save?
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 1y agoYou would have to be a shareholder (which you probably are if you have a 401k) and you would have to show that their decision to save and use private data has hurt their enterprise such that they would have been more profitable and/or grown more/faster had they not done so.
- aaroninsf 1y agoI'm cynical enough to think that this, too, will result in a payout of some kind. Whatever it might be called. Companies like this are too big to be held accountable. Every problem is soluble given their capitalization, the only consequence is irritation and fighting—usually among those already complicit and merely concerned that they didn't maximize their view—of interest to few. Meanwhile, Rome is burning. Oh well.
- v5v3 1y agoMeta are not involved. Individuals directors are being sued, not the company
- tptacek 1y agoThese kinds of suits are so common that directors and officers of large corporations all carry insurance against them --- is there something particularly notable about this suit?
- marshray 1y agoIt discusses HN-adjacent VCs, Delaware business law, and "Big Tech" and government regulation. But, yeah, the $8B in question hardly seems existential to FB.
- tptacek 1y agoOh, yeah, no, I totally get why a serious lawsuit against Facebook execs would be on-topic for HN! I'm more asking, doesn't Facebook see a lawsuit like this like once a quarter?
- v5v3 1y agoDoes Meta break a new law every quarter? This suit is regarding a privacy order they failed to meet and the investors claim this led to the Cambridge Analytics affair. Not a once a quarter repeat event.
- tptacek 1y agoIf by "break a law" you mean "commit an unlawful act", including colorably reneging on contracts or committing torts as well as violating regulations and committing crimes, then yes, I think every major corporation in America does thats several times a quarter.
- marshray 1y agoSorry, my personal information bubble is not calibrated to maintain a half-way-objective estimate on that. Perhaps if we hang around here looking sad someone else will research the answer and tell us?
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 1y ago
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- megous 1y ago[flagged]
- livid-neuro 1y agoWhat genocide? https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/state-of-palestine-population/ https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/state-of-pale...
- megous 1y ago[flagged]
- gcau 1y agoI disagree that it's a genocide, but if you're going to link a source showing it is, the United Nations, and/or the wikipedia page on the topic, would be better than a paywalled NYT article.
- dmix 1y agoThis reminds me of the 2000s when the media was full of “terrorism experts” who were calling everything a terrorism risk. There’s a never ending supply of these experts for whatever topics currently in the news.
- megous 1y agoAnd? Hm, btw, what idiot flags link to sources that show that another idiot is arguing there's no genocide based on data linearly extrapolated from pre-genocide population growth?
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- nudgeOrnurture 1y ago[dead]
- bawolff 1y agoIANAL, but this case sounds like the extremest of long shots to me. Does anyone who knows about this sort of thing have any idea how likely such a lawsuit is to suceede?
- boringg 1y agoHow many shareholders are leading this? It better not be someone who owns one share that they didn't even hold for that long....
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 1y agoAs one might expect Zuckerberg has now reached a settlement with the plaintiffs. Andreesen was scheduled to take the stand today. As in 2017, Andreesen and Zuckerberg have avoided having to answer questions in a courtroom under oath. By settling at the 11th hour.