The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #165570   Message #3973223
Posted By: Iains
24-Jan-19 - 06:44 AM
Thread Name: BS: Brexit #3: A futile gesture?
Subject: RE: BS: Brexit #3: A futile gesture?
The only reason multinationals behave as they do is because inadequate legislation allows it. The first duty of a company is to look after the shareholders, i.e.maximize profit. Morality,charity and national allegiance is no part of the equation. Others explain it thus:
"Contrary to widespread belief, corporate directors are generally not under any legal obligation to maximise profits for their shareholders. Where directors pursue the latter goal, it is usually a product not of legal obligation but rather of the pressures imposed on them by financial markets, activist shareholders, the threat of a hostile takeover and/or stock-based compensation schemes."

https://www.npr.org/2014/07/28/335288388/when-did-companies-become-people-excavating-the-legal-evolution

https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/business-law-blog/blog/2016/11/modern-corporation-statement-company-law

I am sure it requires no explanation as to why a company may up sticks and relocate to a lower cost base, or a more amenable legislatory environment. It goes without saying that many eastern europeans welcomed the employment opportunities that came there way as a result of the above.
As I demonstrated in a previous link it is EU largesse that encouraged many relocations. To state that the poacher also becomes the gamekeeper seems a particularly bizarre socialist solution that inevitably will crash and burn.