Judge dismisses Meta shareholder lawsuit claiming that directors’ obligations extend beyond company WSB-TV Channel 2 [Video]

DOVER, Del. — (AP) — A Delaware judge on Tuesday dismissed a shareholder lawsuit asserting novel claims about the roles of corporate leaders and arguing that the loyalties of Meta directors and company founder Mark Zuckerberg should not lie exclusively with the social media giant.

James McRitchie, who runs a website focused on corporate governance and shareholder activism, argued that Meta’s directors have breached their duties to the company by putting profits over broader societal and economic interests, including Meta shareholders’ diversified investments in other companies.

In a 101-page opinion citing court rulings dating back more than 200 years, decades of law review articles and legal treatises, and even a Sherlock Holmes short story, Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster rejected McRitchie’s claims.

Laster noted that, under the “standard Delaware formulation” of corporate law, directors of a corporation owe duties to the stockholders as investors in that corporation.

“The plaintiff has …