I dunno. Did Chrysler shareholders still have rights? GM shareholders? Republican Chrysler dealers? Evidently not.
Yes, the BP shareholders have rights. They can call a shareholder meeting and vote to remove the current leadership if they don’t like their decisions. The new leadership could then go to court claiming the old leadership failed their fiduciary duty in turning over money to an independent body without any legal benefit.
Pretty much the same tactics as Acorn uses... and organized labor as well. Cooperate or else.
Reminds me of when Paulson (under Bush) demanded that banks take TARP funds to hide the failing ones from investors. Did shareholders in those banks have any rights then?
Did Republicans even care about Paulson doing this?? Many here were upset about this but many others here to this day say it was OK for Paulson to force the banks because it saved the economy.
TARP was a curse. Now in Washington we have emergencies everyday of the year.
There very well should be a shareholders lawsuit come of this. IMO, management has not upheld their fiduciary responsibility. Not saying the victims should not be compensated, but just writing checks is not the way to do it. There will be no end to that line.
I hope some BP shareholders file a suit against Hayward and the directors of BP for breach of fiduciary duty.
Corporate assets may properly be used to pay people with bona fide claims against the corporation.
But handing over a huge sum of corporate assets to Obama and his political apparatus, outside of the legal system, with no control or accounting by BP to ascertain that only bona fide claims are paid, in essence providing a giant slush fund for Obama, could well be found to be a breach of the fiduciary duty owed by the officers and directors of BP to their shareholders.
So, BP could argue that it believed that to give in to Obama's illegal actions was necessary to save the company more money and grief from the US government, and perhaps for PR reasons, and if it does, its actions would come under the business judgment rule.
What needs to happen is for the new supposed conservative Prime Minister of Britain to step in and say that this extra-judicial punishment of BP cannot stand, and fight it diplomatically and economically. He has enough power to stand up to Obama for BP, and he can threaten punitive actions against American companies, perhaps in the North Sea or elsewhere. He could say that he has no problem with BP being subject to US laws, but he will not stand idly by while BP is subjected to dictatorial action. In that way, he would be protecting all those British pensioners who are seeing their life savings go down the drain.
Will he do it? I doubt it. The British are probably still too concerned with following the US lead. They have not shifted, yet, to the realization that Obama is not their ally. We still are, but the US under Obama is not.
“Americans believed in — and lived by — the rule of law.”
Adams was right. Americans do believe in the rule of law. This is what comes of electing a president who is not a natural born citizen (and who has been so cagey about his past that it’s reasonable to wonder whether he is even a citizen).
“Do BP Shareholders Have Rights?”
No.
The precedent was established when Bam-Bam took away GM and Chrysler stockholders’ rights.
BP could have said, “No. See you in court,” but they didn’t. They agreed to pony up the funds and if anything Obama did them a favor. They’re on the hook for billions in damages anyway. They know that. By setting up an escrow fund and letting Obama’s hand-picked designee run it then BP is off the hook. Any delay in payments, any shortage of help, any bottleneck in the claims being processed is the fault of the Obama administration. BP can say, rightly, “We did the responsible thing and made the money available. It’s the other guys who screwed up getting the money to those who need it.”
Q: Do BP Shareholders have rights?
A: No.
We’re a Kleptocracy.
I didn’t see any “rights” afforded GM shareholders OR bondholders, who usually have more rights than shareholders.
If I had been the CEO of BP, I would have “informed” Obama that he had no right to demand anything from me.
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They do have rights. I don’t think there is a “right” to financial gain though, which is probably what this is about.