Bud Light May Now Have a Lawsuit on Its Hands After Shareholder Values Tank
Corporations that wrecked their images in woke marketing campaigns could pay a price for decisions that cost shareholders money.
On May 30, America First Legal took to Twitter on a fishing expedition looking for disgruntled shareholders who have seen their investments flow down the drain faster than a barrel of Bud Light since the beer s embrace of transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney led to a weeks-long boycott that shows no sign of stopping.
ATTENTION: Are you a shareholder of @Target @Kohls @abinbev, or other companies that are promoting transgender, LGBTQ and PRIDE products and diminishing shareholder value? We want to hear from you, the law firm posted.
This would be a difficult case to win. As we learned in Dodge Bros. v. Ford, directors can be liable for taking action not in the interests of shareholders, but it has to be explicitly so. Under Delaware corporate law at least, Bud Lite is allowed to make a stupid mistake in its marketing plans as long as it was being stupid, or even careless, but not acting in bad faith. As long as they thought their dim-witted plan would eventually, say, adapt Bud Lite to our ominous future, it’s entirely within the Board’s business judgment to do what they think best. But perhaps the would-be plaintiff’s attorneys are just looking for a settlement. The Board of Bud Light’s parent might well decide it’s better to settle such a suit than endure the bad publicity they’d get from arguing they were merely stupid and not indifferent to the economic effects of their dumb marketing strategy. Still, this would be the perfect case for a corporate law class, if it comes to that.