Is Marc Benioff Breaking the Law With His Indiana Ban?

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SalesForce.com CEO Marc Benioff announced Thursday he is reducing the companies investment in Indiana due to Governor Mike Pence signing RFRA legislation.

There is nothing illegal with a CEO of a company being politically or socially active in government current events. The problem lies within the fact his company is a publicly traded investment. This means its listed on the stock exchange for all to buy. When you are a publicly traded company you must follow rules set forth by the Securities Exchange Commission when making big investment moves so stockholders can see. I will list a few but compliance can be found at Investor.gov:

    Current Reports on Form 8-K. Companies file this report with the SEC to announce major events that shareholders should know about, including bankruptcy proceedings, a change in corporate leadership (such as a new director or high-level officer), and preliminary earnings announcements.

And here is another rule for the company to follow moving any major investment out of Indiana that could affect shareholders investments. Shareholders would possibly need to vote on the matter:

    Proxy Statements. Shareholder voting constitutes one of the key rights of shareholders. They may elect members of the board of directors, cast non-binding votes on executive compensation, approve or reject proposed mergers and acquisitions, or vote on other important topics. Proxy statements describe the matters to be voted upon and often disclose information on the company’s executive compensation policies and practices.

To be clear, Marc Benioff is not claiming to be shutting down any operations at this time. A move like that would MOST DEFITINETLY have to be filed and voted on by shareholders. From my a**hole business experience I think he is bluffing and within months will be fully operational in sending people to Indiana for business. I’m positive his lawyers got a hold of him and made him carefully word his statement after the first one posted above. If he does start moving assets out like employees or selling off property without notification, then he will be in violation.

I will be following Investor.gov to monitor his threats.

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