While corporate management teams have great discretion to make boneheaded decisions and in order to make our system run have a lot of protection under the law for decisions made in good faith that just turn out badly, there are limits to anything.
Assuming for the sake of the debate that is true, if NWBO reasonably foresaw what could happen and chose to run what amounts to an unsanctioned sting operation all for the hope of creating proof for filing a lawsuit then that is pretty irresponsible management and would seem to be grounds for shareholders to sue management - and anyone who held NWBO shares during that time should have standing.
For their sakes, hopefully we are giving them too little credit.