In his ruling, Justice Gants said that the company noted a potential conflict of interest between policyholders and eventual shareholders and that, under the plan, policyholders would not share Liberty's accumulated profits.
Holding company sits within holding company sits within holding company: in all, there are five intermediate firms between the business that supplies the water and sorts the sewage and the eventual shareholders.
In response, Tempus withdrew its support from the Havas bid today, and said that it would negotiate with both companies "in order to determine the best eventual outcome for Tempus shareholders".
Quite what it might mean for shareholders and for the eventual succession to Mr Ballmer is, however, not yet evident.Hitherto Microsoft has had five largely separate divisions.
In the past, Richard Greenfield, a media analyst at BTIG Research, predicted that the problems presented by the hacking scandal would ultimately benefit shareholders because of the eventual split into two companies.
In a bid to sweep away the old guard and salvage Olympus from a damaging accounting scandal, Michael C. Woodford, its ousted president, said that he would resign from the company's board and work with supportive shareholders to plan an eventual return to his former job.
The "back door" move is viewed as a stepping stone to an eventual listing on the New York Stock Exchange.Let shareholders supervise?Royal Bank of Scotland was embroiled in more controversy over executive pay when it emerged that Stephen Hester, its chief executive, would receive a compensation package worth up to £9.6m ($15.8m).
To be credible, any eventual turnaround plan will require existing shareholders to be wiped out, pension liabilities to be slashed and commercial lenders (owed at least ¥530 billion) to be forced to accept equity in exchange for most of their loans.
That kind of partnership risks an eventual misalignment of interests among the shareholders.
Chief Financial Officer Ian Lowitt explained on the conference call that selling the assets at a fire sale price to an outside firm would have locked in losses for Lehman shareholders while transferring the eventual gains on the portfolio to outsiders, and that is something the company wanted to avoid.
But John P. Walker, who was the chief executive of Novacea until the merger, said most of the company's shareholders preferred to gamble on an eventual big return if Transcept succeeded, rather than accept the liquidation value of Novacea.
