The Delaware public benefit corporation is a relatively new for-profit legal entity that allows for the explicit pursuit of a corporate social or environmental mission. The public benefit corporation requires its directors and managers to balance the interests of its shareholders and beneficiaries of its corporate social or environmental mission. These competing interests implicate the shareholder wealth maximization norm, throwing directors’ legal obligations into question.
Critics of the public benefit corporate form argue that the fiduciary duties created by the public benefit corporation statute conflict with traditional common law fiduciary duties; namely, that the duty to maximize shareholder value cannot legally coexist with the duty to consider the interests of other constituents. Supporters argue that in practice the shareholder wealth maximization norm does not conflict with a director’s fiduciary duties because Delaware law already supports the notion that directors may consider non-shareholder constituent interests in making both day-to-day and anti-takeover corporate decisions.