Darkbeer
08-10-2005, 10:52 AM
disney10aug10,0,1885950.story?coll=la-home-headlines
QuikQuote: A Delaware judge Tuesday rebuked Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Michael Eisner for his role in the ill-fated hiring and firing of Michael Ovitz as president, but ruled that he and other directors did not betray their duty to shareholders. Chancellor William B. Chandler III of the state's Chancery Court ruled that Disney directors acted in good faith when Ovitz was hired in 1995 and then allowed to walk away 15 months later with a severance package shareholder lawyers now value at $130 million. But while relieving directors of legal liability, the judge also scolded them in his 175-page decision, reserving his sharpest comments for Eisner.
"By virtue of his Machiavellian (and imperial) nature as CEO, and his control over Ovitz's hiring in particular, Eisner to a large extent is responsible for the failings in the process that infected and handicapped the board's decision-making capabilities," Chandler wrote.
QuikQuote: A Delaware judge Tuesday rebuked Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Michael Eisner for his role in the ill-fated hiring and firing of Michael Ovitz as president, but ruled that he and other directors did not betray their duty to shareholders. Chancellor William B. Chandler III of the state's Chancery Court ruled that Disney directors acted in good faith when Ovitz was hired in 1995 and then allowed to walk away 15 months later with a severance package shareholder lawyers now value at $130 million. But while relieving directors of legal liability, the judge also scolded them in his 175-page decision, reserving his sharpest comments for Eisner.
"By virtue of his Machiavellian (and imperial) nature as CEO, and his control over Ovitz's hiring in particular, Eisner to a large extent is responsible for the failings in the process that infected and handicapped the board's decision-making capabilities," Chandler wrote.