Shareholder proposal rule
Class Action Trends – Interview with Stephen Gulotta, Managing Member, Mintz Levin's New York Office
In one of its first actions under the new Administration, the SEC staff issued new guidance that largely reinstated older guidance that had supported the ability of public companies to exclude shareholder proposals from their...more
On December 7, 2022, the Staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission issued three Compliance and Disclosure Interpretations that address the universal proxy rules. These are included in the Staff’s Proxy Rules and...more
On July 13, 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), by a 3-2 vote, proposed amendments to the proxy rules that would narrow certain grounds under which companies may exclude shareholder proposals from their...more
On November 3 the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance issued Staff Legal Bulletin 14L (SLB 14L) to provide new guidance on the application of the “ordinary business” and “economic relevance” exceptions to a public company’s...more
On November 3, 2021, the Staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Corporation Finance issued Staff Legal Bulletin No. 14L (the New SLB), which will make it more difficult for companies to exclude social...more
Things are getting interesting, and the shareholder proposal and annual meeting season has only barely kicked off. On Wednesday, November 3, the Division of Corporation Finance (the “Division”) of the Securities and Exchange...more
On November 3, 2021, the staff of the Division of Corporation Finance (Staff) of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (Commission) issued Staff Legal Bulletin No. 14L (SLB 14L), providing information regarding the...more
On November 3, 2021, the Division of Corporation Finance (“Corp Fin”) of the U.S. Securities Exchange Commission (“SEC”) released Shareholder Proposals: Staff Legal Bulletin No. 14L(CF) (the “SLB”) to provide information for...more
On September 23, 2020, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted amendments to modernize certain requirements for the submission of shareholder proposals under Exchange Act Rule 14a-8. The amendments most...more
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented economic disruptions worldwide. Businesses that were previously flourishing are now seeing rapid declines in demand and revenue, disruptions in their supply chains, and other...more
In a previous blog post, we discussed the availability of virtual shareholder meetings (i.e., “virtual-only” and “hybrid” meetings) as a potential alternative to the traditional in-person meeting during the 2020 proxy season...more
The Situation: Late last year, a shareholder sued NorthWestern Corporation ("NWE") to compel the company to include a climate-change related proposal in its 2020 proxy materials after NWE had notified the staff of the...more
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued several important recent updates regarding shareholder proposals and the related no-action request process for companies to consider ahead of the 2019-2020 proxy...more
On October 16, 2019, the Division of Corporation Finance of the US Securities and Exchange Commission issued Staff Legal Bulletin No. 14K to provide additional guidance on shareholder proposals submitted pursuant to Rule...more
The Background: The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("the SEC") has announced that it may no longer review no-action letter requests relating to shareholder proposals submitted to companies under Rule 14a-8. The SEC...more
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released its Shareholder Proposals: Staff Legal Bulletin 14J on Rule 14a-8 earlier this week, following its November 2017 Staff Legal Bulletin 14I. This most recent Staff...more
On November 1, 2017, the staff of the Division of Corporate Finance of the Securities and Exchange Commission published Staff Legal Bulletin No. 14I. SLB 14I provides additional guidance to companies and shareholders...more
On November 1, 2017, the Staff of the Division of Corporation Finance of the Securities and Exchange Commission published in Staff Legal Bulletin No. 14I guidance relating to the excludability of certain shareholder proposals...more
On November 1, 2017, the Division of Corporation Finance of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released Staff Legal Bulletin No. 14I (SLB 14I), which provides important guidance to public companies reviewing...more
On October 22, the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Corporation Finance (Division) issued Staff Legal Bulletin No. 14H (SLB 14H), which (1) sets forth a new standard for determining when a shareholder proposal...more