Recent changes in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proxy rules will give shareholders the ability to vote for directors like never before. The new rules will require companies to provide universal proxy cards to...more
On November 1, 2017, the Staff of the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance released Staff Legal Bulletin No. 14I (“SLB 14I”), which provides new guidance on how the Staff will evaluate arguments for omission of a shareholder...more
In the weeks following the U.S. presidential election, companies and investors enjoyed a stock market rally fueled by expectations concerning tax cuts, increased government spending and significant deregulation. While the...more
GAMCO Asset Management Inc. made the news when it became the first to submit a nominee for National Fuel Gas’ board of directors using a proxy access by-law. National Fuel Gas has now rejected the nominee because the...more
On October 26, 2016, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed amendments to the proxy rules to require parties in contested elections to use universal proxy cards that would include the names of all board of...more
The SEC today proposed amendments to the proxy rules to require parties in a contested election to use universal proxy cards that would include the names of all director nominees. The proposal gives shareholders the ability...more
The general themes on the corporate governance front — shareholder activism, governance activism, scrutiny of board composition, concerns regarding board oversight of risk management, director-shareholder engagement — remain...more
As noted in TheCorporateCounsel.net blog, New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer has once again submitted, on behalf of a number of NYC pension funds, a raft of shareholder proposals for proxy access as part of the...more
Summary of Key ISS and Glass Lewis 2016 Proxy Season Policy Updates - Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS) recently issued, in the form of Frequently Asked Questions, a further update to its 2016 proxy voting...more
Corp Fin today posted Staff Legal Bulletin 14H providing guidance on two key issues regarding shareholder proposals under Rule 14a-8: - the scope and application of Rule 14a-8(i)(9) (the exclusion for conflicting...more
On September 17, 2015, Skadden presented a webinar titled “Proxy Access: Latest Developments.” The panelists were Art Crozier, Chairman of Innisfree M&A Incorporated; Mike Garland, Assistant Comptroller for Corporate...more
Earlier this year, the Canadian Coalition of Good Governance (CCGG) released its publication “Shareholder Involvement in the Director Nomination Process: Enhanced Engagement and Proxy Access”, proposing enhanced proxy access...more
Rhonda Brauer is a senior managing director of corporate governance at Georgeson Inc. where she helps companies enhance their shareholder communications and analyze their governance practices. She recently joined Latham &...more
Proxy access, meaning the ability of stockholders to put their nominees on management’s proxy card and create a proxy contest without having to file their own proxy statement, was the marquee issue of the 2015 proxy season....more
Although the 2015 annual meeting season is still winding down, there is no doubt that proxy access has gained considerable momentum and will remain a front-and-center corporate governance issue for the foreseeable future. For...more
On February 20, (ISS) published long-awaited FAQs clarifying its voting policies on proxy access proposals that would allow investors to include director nominees in the company’s proxy materials....more
GE has voluntarily adopted a proxy access by-law proposal. The by-law permits a shareowner, or a group of up to 20 shareowners, owning 3% or more of the Company’s outstanding common stock continuously for at least three...more
On January 16, 2015, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced that, for the 2015 proxy season, the Division of Corporation Finance will not express any views as to whether a company may exclude a shareholder...more
Although Insights is intended to cover a wide range of issues, there are a number of topics we believe will be of particular interest to directors and senior corporate executives. Below is an introduction to these topics and...more
For a number of years, the message for directors of U.S. public companies has been that their decisions face greater and greater scrutiny. While some of this enhanced scrutiny has come from federal and state governments,...more
Much is being made of the January 16th statement by SEC Chair Mary Jo White regarding a company’s ability to exclude a shareholder proposal from its proxy statement based on Rule 14a-8(i)(9), which allows exclusion when a...more
Yesterday, Broc Romanek posted on SEC Chair Mary Jo White’s Friday surprise with respect the no-action letter request submitted by Whole Foods Market, Inc. Readers may recall that in December Whole Foods had obtained the...more
In her NYT column this past Sunday, Gretchen Morgenson provides an interesting update on the saga of James McRitchie’s proxy access proposal submitted to Whole Foods....more
The SEC has granted Whole Foods no action relief to exclude a proxy access proposal submitted under Rule 14a-8. The proponent’s proposal sought a non-binding shareholder resolution to request that the Whole Food’s Board of...more
The Comptroller of the City of New York, who oversees pension funds with a combined $160 billion in assets, recently submitted proxy access shareholder proposals at 75 U.S. public companies as part of its Boardroom...more