But trade-offs are ubiquitous not just in stakeholder but also in shareholder governance, and the resulting judgments that are required of directors should not be viewed as an anathema but a fundamental function of a board, without which untenable outcomes result. The complexity that BT see in implementing a stakeholder system reflects a failure to recognize the way in which business routinely makes judgments based on its purposes and values. Purpose and values hold management to account to a degree that enlightened long-term shareholder value cannot. In seeking to demonstrate that directors are not motivated or able to promote anything other than shareholder value in a shareholder-oriented system, BT merely describe the system that they see rather than analyse what it could or should be. The paper therefore fails to provide a benchmark against which it is possible to evaluate either the comparative merits of shareholder and stakeholder systems, or alternative proposals for reform.