

In Retreat, Murdoch Drops TV Takeover - wallflower
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/14/world/europe/14hacking.html?hp

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TomOfTTB
See this is why I hate the NY Times.

I get the fact that they hate Rupert Murdoch. I don't much care for him
either. But you can't skew your reporting based on that.

In this case Parliament was about to pass a law forbidding Murdoch from buying
the stock out and the Prime Minister personally appealed to Murdoch to drop
it. That fact deserved to by higher than paragraph 7 of the article since it
was cited as the main reason News Corp withdrew its bid.

Murdoch isn't retreating he's being forced out by the UK's government and
BSkyB shareholders are suffering because of it.

(For the record I do own BSkyB shares and am about to see them drop like a
stone thanks to this so I'm a little biased myself)

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mooism2
The UK Parliament was not about to pass a law against the takeover.

It was about to vote on a motion opposing the takeover, but nothing that would
have any formal consequences, even in the Government's handling of the
takeover.

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TomOfTTB
I think it's semantics but I'll concede the point. Murdoch wouldn't have been
outright forbidden by the law (or whatever you want to call it).

But when the government of a nation expressly attacks a specific future action
a company would have to be insane to then pursue that action. It isn't like
the Congress censuring one of its members or the President because in that
case it's two parties of equal power.

In this case the Parliament has power over News Corp and is specifically
saying "don't do this". So in my view it is effectively a law against the
takeover

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gte910h
I get that this hurts your pocketbook, but having seen people in "industries"
that were shut down by reforms, it's nothing like a law preventing the
takeover.

