corporate law and the megas of shadowrun Options

[hobgoblin]

I found myself reading some things about corporations over on wikipedia, and ran into some stuff about the separation of shareholder and management, and how that could lead to management using the corporation for personal gain rather then the corporation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_law#Balance_of_power

The basic problem is this:

You have a lot of shareholders that invest, but beyond that is very hands off about the daily running of the corporation.

At the same time, you have the day to day managers of the corporation. These have no real investment in the corporation beyond the salary and perks they can get from the position they hold.

End result is that unless the manager pulls of something that makes the shareholder take a personal interest in the daily running, he is basically a lord of the "land".

Then stack on the multinational aspect, and maybe tiered ownership (corp owning corp owning corp), and you may have some asshole running the local show without the powers that be are aware of it (or maybe wants to be aware of it).

Its basically a modern variant of a king appointing a regional governor, and said governor going on a "power trip" that will only stop if the king comes stomping with his army to inspect what all this noise is about.