🚀 go-pugleaf

	The following is a my letter to David Barton regarding his
statement (quoted below), followed by David's reply to my letter.
I may respond to David's reply.  For now, however, I'll just post these
letters to the net to make the point that it is far from established
that Apple's execs would be in violation of any criminal law or would
have have any real civil liability as a result of dropping their lawsuit
against Microsoft.  --Adam

------------------------------My letter--------------------

>   Making a moral decision (where the counter decision is not illegal)
>   that reduces the value of the company's stock may be right, but it
>   is also illegal.  If any one of the stockholders can prove that his
>   holdings were reduced in value by such a decision, and that the
>   company officials knew that this was the probable result of their
>   actions, then the officers can be sent to jail, regardless of the
>   wishes of the rest (even 99%) of the other stockholders.

	I don't know which law you were referring to, but I'm
surprised that it is a criminal law rather than a civil law (i.e.,
a law that can cause one to be "sent to jail").  Could you identify
this law (if you know) and elaborate on its limits?

	I can think of a number of decisions that executives have
made that they knew would adversely effect their companies' retained
earnings (which is a major factor in determining a stock's price).
For example, Burger King has required that the corrugated cartons
that their suppliers use must be at least partially recycled, and,
to the best of my knowledge, they don't advertise this fact, so it
isn't generating sales (although they do advertise the fact that
some of their other packaging is recycled).  Many companies have
pulled out of South Africa in a hurry, and it's reasonable to believe
that their haste may have caused them to sell assets for less than
they otherwise would have been able to get, and may have resulted in
other costs due to relocation and reorganization.  On a more absurd
note, can the corporate contributors to the united way and the San
Francisco symphony be jailed?

	If retained earnings aren't a strong enough connection to
stock price, consider the decisions that companies make that have
a more direct effect.  Companies sometimes issue new stock to raise
money or to thwart a hostile takeover.  Sometimes they buy other
companies (which often reduces the price of the buyer's stock, although
the price of the target's stock will rise to almost match the buyer's
offer).  Sometimes executives can adversely effect the price of their
company's stock by quitting.  There are too many normal business
practices for which the "probable result" is a reduction of a
stock's value for me to believe that the fiduciary responsibility
law that you refer to is as all-encompassing your statement suggests.

	If it really were the case that Apple needed a business
reason in order legally to be able to drop the lawsuit, then
that would actually be a good argument for the Apple boycott (i.e., to
provide such a business reason).  Even in that case, the usual open
systems arguments might suffice to provide Apple enough of a business
reason to defend their actions.  (Athough, the other arguments for
boycotting Apple are unaffected.)

		--Adam J. Richter

------------------------------ David's response ------------------------------