What are ISS and Glass Lewis and Why Should My Bank Care?
We recently represented Klaviyo, Inc. (NYSE: KVYO), in its $576 million initial public offering on the New York Stock Exchange. As has been extensively reported in the media, Klaviyo’s very successful offering represented the...more
Takeaways - ESG activist campaigners are likely to continue asserting themselves. Companies that have merged with SPACs and whose stock prices have slumped will be at risk for activist pressure. Watch for more activist...more
Background - This alert summarizes the results from ISS’s 2021 policy surveys, which were released on October 1, 2021. As we explained in our previous alert, ISS collects information each year from institutional...more
Glass Lewis announced updates to its United States Proxy Voting Policy Guidelines late November 2020. The 2021 Proxy Voting Policy Guidelines include a variety of changes from the 2020 version, including new provisions...more
Companies preparing for their annual shareholder meetings will need to consider a variety of factors, including new guidance from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and recommendations from Glass, Lewis & Co. (Glass...more
Last week Institutional Shareholder Services updated its proxy voting guidelines for annual shareholder meetings to be held on or after February 1, 2020. The updates take a major step forward to advocate greater gender...more
Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS), an influential proxy advisory firm, recently proposed changes to its benchmark voting policies to be applied for upcoming shareholder meetings taking place on or after February...more
As the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) enters the third year of the Trump administration, its regulatory and enforcement goals remain largely unchanged. At the direction of Chairman Jay Clayton, the SEC continues to...more
On April 27, 2018, the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Nasdaq, along with certain technology and biotechnology groups, released a policy paper titled “Expanding...more
As discussed in this December 2016 Cooley Alert, this proxy season, the policies of ISS and Glass Lewis provide that they will recommend voting against the re-election of directors of “newly public” companies that, prior to...more
ISS and Glass Lewis are continuing to apply special scrutiny to certain corporate governance provisions of "newly public" companies (generally, companies that have gone public in 2014 or later). In short, the latest policies...more
Snap Inc., which debuted on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on March 2nd, was the largest tech IPO since Alibaba went public in 2014. Initially priced at $17 per share, the share price jumped to more than $24 by the end of...more
Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis (GL), the two most influential proxy advisory firms, recently released updates to their voting policies for 2017. Both ISS and GL issued policy updates on director...more
Dear clients and friends, We present our traditional year-end issue of Snell & Wilmer’s Corporate Communicator to help you prepare for the upcoming annual report and proxy season. This issue highlights SEC reporting and...more
Proxy advisory firms Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass, Lewis & Co. (Glass Lewis) recently issued updated proxy voting guidelines for the upcoming 2017 proxy season. Notable updates were issued by one or...more
ISS announced the launch of its 2017 benchmark voting policy consultation period. The open comment period, which will solicit views from governance stakeholders globally on certain proposed voting policies for 2017, will run...more
Dual-Class Stock: A Founder Favorite Faces Growing Investor Disapproval - Earlier this year, the investment firm T. Rowe Price adopted new voting policies that penalize companies with dual-class stock structures. They...more
Corporate governance has changed dramatically since passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 and the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. The level of shareholder engagement and institutional...more
ISS has issued a series of 26 FAQs on its Equity Plan Scorecard, or EPSC. The basic EPSC policy has not changed, but effective for meetings as of Feb. 1, 2016, the FAQs state the following adjustments will apply to EPSC...more
ISS has made available for public comment certain proposed voting policies for 2016. In the United States ISS has proposed policies relating to unilateral board actions, director overboarding and compensation at...more
Similar to last year, there are no new disclosure requirements which need to be reflected in this year’s proxy statement; however, with ongoing shareholder activism and the desire of companies to communicate effectively with...more
Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass, Lewis & Co. (Glass Lewis), two of the leading providers of corporate governance research and proxy voting services, have published their updated proxy voting guidelines for...more
Proxy research and advice entities Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (“ISS”) and Glass, Lewis & Co., LLC (“Glass Lewis”) recently updated the guidelines each service will use to inform their voting recommendations for...more
Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS) and Glass, Lewis & Co., LLC, issued their respective annual updates to their proxy voting guidelines on November 6, 2014. As revised these guidelines have important implications...more
The Director of the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance, Keith Higgins, recently gave the keynote address, here, at the 2014 Angel Capital Association Summit. He focused on the following three items on the SEC rulemaking...more