Shareholders with voting shares have the right to attend shareholders meetings and vote in the board of directors. In such large corporations, shareholders usually appoint a proxyholder who attends the meeting and votes on the shareholder's behalf.
My understanding was that Nokia Plan B was basically soliciting such proxies by asking shareholders to give their votes to them for the purpose of replacing the board.
Corporate law usually doesn't require a proxyholder to be a shareholder, so they actually didn't even need such a (weak) claim to authority.
As a side note, soliciting proxies usually requires following proper corporate law procedure by sending prescribed materials. Nokia Plan B just had a website, which was an early indication this was a fake.
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They didn't even need to be a shareholder.
Shareholders with voting shares have the right to attend shareholders meetings and vote in the board of directors. In such large corporations, shareholders usually appoint a proxyholder who attends the meeting and votes on the shareholder's behalf.
My understanding was that Nokia Plan B was basically soliciting such proxies by asking shareholders to give their votes to them for the purpose of replacing the board.
Corporate law usually doesn't require a proxyholder to be a shareholder, so they actually didn't even need such a (weak) claim to authority.
As a side note, soliciting proxies usually requires following proper corporate law procedure by sending prescribed materials. Nokia Plan B just had a website, which was an early indication this was a fake.
The beauty of the hoax was that in this situation, fake plan and real, well-intentioned but ill-conceived plan are basically indistinguishable.