For all the wrangling over the interpretation of the language in the contract or even the legislation, I'm not sure any of it actually matters.
I'll start with the standard "I am not a lawyer" disclaimer. My grasp of the law is no better than any other educated layman. But what I do know is this: contract law (civil law in general) is not a black or white thing. When a civil case is considered, it's rare that any party is wholly in the right or wholly in the wrong. Any judgement in the case will be based on the balance of all factors under consideration, and intent matters, at least to some degree. Further, even if one party IS found to be in the wrong, the wronged party must be able to show an actual loss (damages) in order to be awarded compensation. US courts are rather quicker than most to award punitive damages, but even then punitive damages are hard to argue without some clear financial or emotional damage.
So let's assume that the strict interpretation of the POS that would disallow reallocations outside of a single unit is correct. And let's further assume that a court agrees with that interpretation, and finds DVCMC to be in breach of that particular clause of the contract. That factor is not going to be considered in a vacuum. DVCMC is going to argue that they were acting in the best interest of the membership, both in past and current reallocations, and in accordance with their obligation to balance demand across units. And even if the judge doesn't agree that the "best interest" argument justifies the breach of the reallocation clause, there's still the question of damages. To the extent that reallocations are neutral, it's very simple to show that there are no damages across the membership as a whole.
Now suppose that the membership could in fact prove that DVCMC is acting in their own best interest, or even further, in Disney's best interest, and thus had failed in their fiduciary duty to the membership. Given that DVCMC is in a clear conflict of interest position, I suspect a judge could look upon this very unfavourably indeed. This is where very substantial punitive damages might be imposed, not to mention the bad press. It's this, more than anything else, that leads me to believe that there is probably not anything nefarious going on with the reallocation, even if we can't guess at the full explanation. Disney knows perfectly well that DVCMC is in a conflict of interest, and they also know perfectly well how badly it might go for them if DVCMC were to abuse that position. So I suspect they're actually quite careful
not to do anything that wouldn't hold up to close scrutiny. Not because they're our best friends and the thought of screwing us over would never even occur to them, but out of a healthy sense of their own self-preservation. To that extent, their own best interest actually aligns perfectly with ours.
So in the end, I think the only thing that really ends up mattering is whether DVCMC can show that they are, in fact, putting members' interests first. And I would guess that they (and their giant legal department) have a pretty rock-solid argument for why that's true, even if they're not choosing to share it.
All that said, I'm really glad we're having this conversation, and it's not my intent at all to be dismissive of anyone's concerns, or suggest that they're unfounded. It's exactly this sort of discussion that will keep Disney accountable, and it's important to keep ourselves as informed as possible. Thanks
@zavandor for starting it, and to all who have contributed.