What's supposed to hedge this for the market is competition. There's nothing anyone can do to stop a dedicated board from tanking a company (for whatever benefit they get from doing so). But what that does is open up an opportunity for a competitor to step up and take the marketshare of the company that is going down.
If I am understanding competition doesnt help the victim in a case like this. the victim isn't the consumer of the products produced, its the stock holders who own the company who are being fleeced.
I guess it seems to me one can buy a company not for the price of the valuation, but for the price of the board of directors.
Oh, yeah ... the problem is that the average stockholder has entered into an agreement where they are at a disadvantage. By buying a relatively small amount of shares (ie. what most regular people do), they have no control over what the company does, they have no voice. So in reality, regular investors should invest with that risk at the forefront. It's obvious that most day traders and small time investors don't really take this risk factor into account ... but the mechanism does exist to mitigate it; doing your due diligence on the board of directors, and choosing not to invest (or selling your shares if the board changes).
