Disney has come under fire after a video resurfaced showing horribly CGI-generated background actors in the movie "Prom Pact."
  • Bleeping LobsterEnglish
    5•8 months ago

    Perhaps they didn’t use the right words. Iirc the correct term is ‘fiduciary duty’. A publicly traded company has a fiduciary duty to create value for shareholders.

    The duties of some fiduciaries have been codified, for example, the statutory duty of skill and care which is imposed upon trustees by section 1 of the Trustee Act 2000 (TrA 2000) and the relationship between company directors and the company under the Companies Act 2006

    https://www.lexisnexis.co.uk/legal/guidance/fiduciary-duties

    • @[email protected]English
      2•8 months ago

      Good find. I did some quick googling on this (so take it a grain of salt) and found the following:

       A breach of fiduciary duty occurs in a variety of situations, such as when the fiduciary puts his own interests before the company and shareholders or when the fiduciary engages in other behavior that could be detrimental to the company and shareholder interests, such as embezzling company funds.

      I have not dug too deeply, but what little I’ve found says that the fiduciary must act in the best interests of the company and shareholders. As a cynic it is easy to interpret this to mean ‘make as much profit as possible’, which is kind of the point of investing. A look back at history sadly reenforces this.

      But fiduciary duty doesn’t give one a free pass to break other laws like child labor or slavery. Yes many companies still do as evidenced by sweatshops around the world. But if one is acting in the best interests of the company, one should not be doing such things even though they are obviously profitable.

      • Bleeping LobsterEnglish
        1•8 months ago

        But if one is acting in the best interests of the company, one should not be doing such things even though they are obviously profitable

        Agreed. But then, you and I aren’t CEOs… maybe it’s just a meme but I’m sure there was a study that found CEOs have a much greater proportion of psychopaths than the background rate. Maybe they just don’t consider ethical stuff the way we do!