Should companies be punished for handing money back to shareholders? The Department of Justice seems to think so.
In the midst of its landmark lawsuit against Apple, the antitrust enforcer noted disapprovingly of the company’s $77bn buyback scheme in 2023: not because it was a lazy deployment of capital but as an indicator of what the DoJ dubbed “anti-competitive and exclusionary” conduct.
The sprawling antitrust lawsuit is the product of a five-year probe and will take years to resolve. But scrutiny can mean change before either party steps into a courtroom. Apple’s mammoth buyback programme could be one casualty.
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