Especially if you are so large that you sell shares in company, then you have a LEGAL obligation to the shareholders to always take decisions that maximise profit over everything else
I wish people would quit saying that. IANAL, but I never have found anything that definitively says that. It would seem that in the case of company sale or takeover, yes, the board has to "maximize shareholder value". But in day-to-day operations there is nothing stopping a company from saying, "we're not going to be assholes" at the expense of maximizing shareholder value. Shareholders don't like it? Sell your shares.
As one example, I refer you to Costco, with profits capped at 15%, to the chagrin of some on Wall Street.
As for the Jobs/Apple example, I sure hate to play the [citation needed] card, but I don't think he exactly said that Apple legally had its hands tied.
The article even quotes someone from the Labor Department as saying that companies used to use US workers at the expense of "maximizing shareholder value", without anyone going to jail, but they don't now.
Simply put: if the board doesn't maximize the interests of the shareholders, the board will be replaced by a board who does. Because of this control mechanism a public company will always take care of the shareholders first before anything else.
I wish people would quit saying that. IANAL, but I never have found anything that definitively says that. It would seem that in the case of company sale or takeover, yes, the board has to "maximize shareholder value". But in day-to-day operations there is nothing stopping a company from saying, "we're not going to be assholes" at the expense of maximizing shareholder value. Shareholders don't like it? Sell your shares.
As one example, I refer you to Costco, with profits capped at 15%, to the chagrin of some on Wall Street.
As for the Jobs/Apple example, I sure hate to play the [citation needed] card, but I don't think he exactly said that Apple legally had its hands tied.
EDIT: found my own citation. Jobs said nothing of the sort. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and...
The article even quotes someone from the Labor Department as saying that companies used to use US workers at the expense of "maximizing shareholder value", without anyone going to jail, but they don't now.