The article is pretty vague about the particulars of the suit, but it sounds like Activision undersold itself and threw some of its investors to the curb. Not the best thing to do when you're handling other people's money.
Customers before investors. If they had taking too much control, Blizzard would have had "investor creep" destroy their quality.
Seriously, suing a company because they didn't do everything to maximize your investment? Something is seriously wrong with this picture. That's the risk they took when they invested. I don't see anything illegal about it, or anything that should be illegal. They can complain, they can sell their stock. Unless some Enron stuff went down, what's to sue about?
The purpose of the corporation is to maximize shareholder wealth. Sure, you can bring ethical arguments and such, but that is the one, core value of every corporation. If Activision's directors, for whatever reason, took a bad deal that hurt a lot of their investors, then the investors have a right to do something about it.
Now, I don't know that suing is the right course of action, but depending on the facts of the situation, it's not necessarily a wrong course of action. The corporation is using YOUR money and, to some extent, they have an obligation to use it in a manner that benefits YOU.
Yes that's the "goal" but obligation is stretching it. When someone buys shares, does the company sign some sort of contract promising they will do everything possible? If not, I'd say there's no legal grounds for it, and really I'd rather a bunch of hipster doofases sitting around laptops in some Starbucks get screwed than the consumers. I think that's more important, but then again I also think selling "stocks" tends to corrupt a company a lot of the time too. Besides, in the long term that's in the share holder's best interests too.
Ya know the thing is when I heard the terms of the agreement with Blizzard's buyout, and recent statements from companies like EA about their new policy, I saw it as a great change a long time coming in how they deal with these things. Now it looks like share holders threatening to sue of all things is going to screw it all up. Seriously, they shouldn't be able to sue any more than a casino should be liable for someone throwing away their life savings on a gamble there.
Gambling involves a game of chance. The stock involves actual ownership of a corporation. The act of buying a share of stock means that you now own a small piece of that company. From then on, the company is using your money to finance its operations.
There's no law that says a company has to turn a profit, but companies also can't just throw money around without regard for how that money is going to help them turn a profit. Shareholders have a right to be upset that the company that they own some peice of got them a raw deal and caused them to have significantly less influence than they previously had.
Consumers don't factor into this at all. It's purely a matter of shareholders not being happy that their company made a bad deal with another company that caused them to be marginalized.
Even small shareholders are owners too, they have a right not to be trampled on by the company's directors.