Dulcie Boling

"In the years that followed he shuffled the deck of his assets in a series of big, complex, related-party transactions. The effect, in every case, was that the debt ended up further away from Stokes’ private interests, while his control over the assets was tightened. In all this the independent directors of his public companies – including Dulcie Boling, who had once been Murdoch’s nominee, and Peter Ritchie, the former head of McDonald’s Australia – raised no public objection."

"COWLEY STRUCK THREE hours before the deadline for tenders from Optus and Foxtel. Instead of submitting a Foxtel bid, he sent a hostile note some Seven directors saw as threatening. The directors called in a Queen’s Counsel to advise them on whether it was legally prudent to defy it. Meanwhile, the Optus offer arrived — and greatly impressed the Seven directors. But their silk warned that if they rebuffed the offer, Optus might sue. However, if they took the offer, News might sue. Campbell urged the board to go with Optus and the board voted to take his advice. Two people were deeply unhappy. One was Dulcie Boling, prevented from voting because she represented News; the other was Stokes. Boling got mad and Stokes got even. He calmly threatened to sue the directors individually over the Optus decision — which, he argued, should have gone to shareholders. Not all company directors are automatically indemnified against actions by major shareholders and so the threat worried the board. Threatening directors and running press campaigns had been standard procedure in the 1980s, especially in Perth, but most of the Seven directors had not encountered these tactics before."