Corporate-governance advocates claimed victory. The case was widely seen as a legal test for News Corp.'s novel argument that it didn't have to honor its promise to hold a vote on the poison pill because the promise was simply a "board policy" that could be changed.

"The fear was that if News [Corp.] was seen as getting away with this, it was going to encourage other companies to adopt these [board] policies as hollow promises," said Patrick McGurn, special counsel for Institutional Shareholder Services Inc., a proxy-advisory service.