# Can a publicly traded corporation bar someone from buying or owning stock? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 26, 2012, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-publicly-traded-corporation-bar-someone-from-buying-or-owning-stock/610657 "2012-01-26T00:20:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![robert\_columbia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e79b87/32.png) [@robert\_columbia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robert_columbia)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-publicly-traded-corporation-bar-someone-from-buying-or-owning-stock/610657/1 "2012-01-26T00:20:19Z")
Say I buy some shares in a publicly traded corporation and then act extremely inappropriately during the annual shareholder meeting, enough to piss off the management something terrible. E.g. the CEO asks, “Are there any stockholders present who wish to say anything in front of the other stockholders and management?”, and I raise my hand and start saying scurrilous things about the CEO’s mother. Does the corporation have any power to either forcibly buyout my shares (e.g. to make me no longer a stockholder so that I can be barred from meetings), or prevent me from buying any more? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-publicly-traded-corporation-bar-someone-from-buying-or-owning-stock/610657/2 "2012-01-26T00:57:44Z")
No. It’d be impossible to enforce. And once the IPO is over, the company has no control over the shares. They may be able to ban you from the stockholder’s meetings as being disruptive, though I’m not sure of that. Usually, management just lets you rant and then moves on. If necessary, they’ll turn off your microphone so no one can hear you, and if you get rowdy, they can had security remove you. ---
**Author:** ![lisiate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f05b48/32.png) [@lisiate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lisiate)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-publicly-traded-corporation-bar-someone-from-buying-or-owning-stock/610657/3 "2012-01-26T01:14:19Z")
I think no as well, it’d be a breach of the listing rules of the exchange the company belongs to. ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-publicly-traded-corporation-bar-someone-from-buying-or-owning-stock/610657/4 "2012-01-26T03:09:23Z")
I’m not really sure but I think there are some laws that define what “publicly traded” means and part of that means anybody can buy it in the open market. A company has no way of finding out \*a priori \*who is buying their stock, only after the fact. That is, there is no way for a company to blacklist a shareholder. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 3:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-publicly-traded-corporation-bar-someone-from-buying-or-owning-stock/610657/5 "2012-01-26T03:19:05Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > That is, there is no way for a company to blacklist a shareholder. If there were, then hostile takeovers of publicly-traded companies would be essentially impossible. ---
**Author:** ![cooky173](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71c47a/32.png) [@cooky173](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cooky173)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-publicly-traded-corporation-bar-someone-from-buying-or-owning-stock/610657/6 "2012-01-26T13:27:48Z")
They could make you an employee, and then give you access to price sensitive information. I believe this would make it illegal to trade shares in that company. I don’t know if they could legally give you price sensitive information if you were not an employee, but that is possibly another way they could. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2012, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-a-publicly-traded-corporation-bar-someone-from-buying-or-owning-stock/610657/7 "2012-01-26T13:59:38Z")
> [@cooky173](#): > > They could make you an employee, and then give you access to price sensitive information. I believe this would make it illegal to trade shares in that company. No. If the information is nonpublic, you couldn’t trade until it becomes public, but once it does, you can trade as much as you want. I worked at a publicly held brokerage firm and my job involved formatting the earning press releases. Employees were banned from trading for a period of about ten days before the earnings were released, which boils down to 40 days a year. The rest of the year, you could trade the stock as much as you wanted.