Whether Yahoo shareholders will be persuaded by the executives' argument remains to be seen.
In her decision, Judge Segal Huvelle rejected the executives' argument that their disbarment should be overturned because their convictions resulted simply from their status as senior executives at Purdue, rather than from their conduct.
There are exceptions, of course, but most directors tend to assume that if they don't understand the logic of a chief executive's argument or strategy, they're probably the only one.
Gina Johnson, the company's chief executive, says arguments against early detection for its own sake "do not make common sense to a layperson".
Six months after America Online bought Time Warner, the merged company's top executives rejected arguments from its chief financial officer that they should back down from their ambitious promises to Wall Street, three senior executives involved in the company's deliberations now say.
Mr. Ellison is by no means the only software executive making that argument.
And the peer groups they were supposed to be in were often inflated; for example, someone running a unit might be portrayed as a chief executive because, the argument went, he ran a really big unit.
Dr. Rose said compelling the governor to testify before a legislative committee could compromise the power and autonomy of the executive branch, an argument also made by Mr. Rowland in his lawsuit challenging the subpoena.
But last year, as stocks fell, the executives changed their argument, saying they needed more options to make up for the market's downturn.
Judge Bates' decision rejected the executive branch's arguments that federal courts have no jurisdiction to hear lawsuits filed on behalf of foreign detainees in Afghanistan.
