• FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Shareholders accusing the board of failing their obligations to protect the company from liabilities- specifically… by allowing conspiracy theories they knew were false to be aired frequently.

    Interesting take. This might actually have some bite to it

    • 0110010001100010@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      I’ll remain skeptical for now that Fox faces any real consequences. I feel like this could just as easily go the route of “Fox didn’t intend to loose money” and “companies make stupid decisions all the time” depending on how it gets argued. Probably end up just being a settlement either way, likely before discovery even starts.

    • krayj@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      As much as I love seeing more lawsuits pile up against Fox, I just don’t see any merit to these cases.

      Both cases claim that fox has “a longstanding habit” of allowing conspiracy theories and inviting defamation lawsuits that would damage the company’s value (affecting their investment).

      If you are an investor, is it not your duty/responsibility to vet the investment before investing? If fox had a “longstanding” habit of it, then this means it’s been going on a while, and that it was an obvious thing that everybody (including those investment/pension funds) knew about.

      Companies take gambles all the time. Sometimes they pay out, and sometimes those gambles lose money. In this case, the gamble was paying out bigtime in the short run but they lost in the long run. That’s business. It’s the investor’s responsibility to make the decision and all the facts of the case were available to anyone with the will to do their due diligence (I mean, everything they are complaining about was broadcast on public television, it’s not like Fox was hiding anything).

      This is a case of investor incompetence, imo.

      • dynamojoe@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        A little of column A, a little of column B. I’d put a lot of weight into when the investments were made. The older the investment, the more valid the claim. It’s not like Fox started out as the Trump channel - they originally sold scandal and outrage, not lies. No one can argue that they haven’t gone off the deep end since COVID, but if you were invested before then you had to find an incident that you could explain was the uncrossable line in order to divest (without losing your investing job) and there wasn’t one. It was little by little for years as the New Normal kept lowering the bar and the investors sat like the proverbial frogs in the pot. Looking back though, only Giuliani or Powell would now dare to say there wasn’t a line crossed somewhere in there from scandal to bullshit. After March 18, 2019 if you weren’t out you were screwed: not only did your investments lose a lot of value, you lost out on potential further gains had they stayed on the straight-and-narrow since Day 1.

        I’d also say that investors couldn’t know that the Smartmatic and Dominion lies were being knowingly told at the time. It’s not like FOX was telling investors “You’re money’s safe with us, we sell lies”. They lied with a straight face to everyone.

        But what the hell. Let 'em fight it out in court.