According to the Financial Times, “[p]ension funds and retail investors have complained for years over their lack of ability to vote at annual meetings when using an asset manager.” Last week, BlackRock, the largest asset...more
Climate risk is investment risk. So says BlackRock. And when you manage $8.7 trillion, people tend to listen to what you say. I’ve been noting for some time that BlackRock’s statements seemed to presage increasing...more
Strong ESG credentials and long-term plans to improve their relationship with society and the environment are increasingly important to ensure companies’ access to capital. Environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters...more
Although it may seem like the last millennium, it was only in January of this year that the CEO of BlackRock, Laurence Fink, in his annual letter to CEOs, announced a number of initiatives designed to put “sustainability at...more
In January 2020, two of the largest asset managers, State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) and BlackRock, emphasized that they will hold Boards of Directors accountable for not making significant progress on sustainability and...more
In Jensen v. iShares Trust, 2020 Cal. App. LEXIS 61 (Cal. App. Jan. 23, 2020), a rare state court decision addressing claims under the Securities Act of 1933 (“1933 Act”), the California Court of Appeal rejected...more
In a previous blog post, we discussed the Delaware Chancery Court’s decision in Saba Capital Master Fund, Ltd. v. Blackrock Credit Allocation Income Trust and its relevance to the interpretation of advance notice bylaw...more
In this year’s annual letter to CEOs, BlackRock CEO Laurence Fink once again advocates the importance of a long-term approach, at the same time mourning the prevalence of political dysfunction and acknowledging the resulting...more
The Situation: BlackRock, the world's largest money management firm, has issued a new call to corporate America: Take a leadership role in responding to broader social issues, including sustainability, diversity and economic...more
Notwithstanding the deregulatory emphasis of the current administration, two campaigns are currently being waged to convince the SEC to adopt new regulations mandating more disclosure—one related to human capital management...more
We previously noted BlackRock’s recent shareholder votes in favor of increased reporting of climate risks by ExxonMobil and Occidental. Now, BlackRock has stepped it up a notch by including “vote bulletins” on its investment...more
A new trend is emerging among the country’s most influential fossil fuel investors: a demand for climate change accountability and progress towards a low-carbon economy. On May 31, 2017, a vote among Exxon Mobil’s...more
In the midst of President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris Agreement, shareholders are demanding greater transparency regarding climate change risks. While publicly-traded companies are often adept at disclosing...more
On May 31, shareholders at Exxon Mobil Corp. (“ExxonMobil”) voted in favor of a climate change resolution asking the company to publish an annual report on the business impact of measures designed to limit global temperature...more
In March, I noted BlackRock’s increasing concern over climate. One element of its statement was “potential support for shareholder resolutions on climate risk”, where “management’s response to our prior engagement has been...more
It’s Friday and time for another overview of developments in the field of business and human rights that we’ve been monitoring. This week’s post includes: a new report on the state of corporate human rights reporting; the...more
This Alert is an update to last year's Client Alert on the same topic, which also discussed how to win a proxy fight despite a "no" recommendation from Institutional Shareholder Services ("ISS") and/or Glass Lewis. The...more
While Laurence D. Fink, co-founder and chief executive of BlackRock, has been decrying short-termism for a number of years, in his 2016 corporate governance letter to CEOs, he takes his advocacy a step further....more
The SEC’s Division of Economic and Risk Analysis issued analysis on the “potential effect on pay ratio disclosure of exclusion of different percentages of employees at a range of thresholds.” Without even trying to follow the...more