Shareholder proposal rule
On February 12, 2025, the Division of Corporation Finance (Staff) of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released new guidance regarding shareholder proposals submitted pursuant to Rule 14a-8 under the Securities...more
For those who use “March Madness” to describe proxy season rather than basketball, they'll immediately know that the “economic relevance” exclusion under Rule 14a-8(i)(5) is something of a lore in the SEC's shareholder...more
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 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, 2021, the staff of the Division of Corporation Finance (the Staff) of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC) issued Staff Legal Bulletin No. 14L (CF) (SLB 14L) relating to shareholder proposals...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
The SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance recently published Legal Bulletin 14L (CF) (the “Bulletin”) providing updated guidance on excluding shareholder proposals under Rule 14a-8 under the Exchange Act. Specifically, the...more
The SEC Division of Corporation Finance announced it has rescinded Staff Legal Bulletin (“SLBs”) Nos. 14I, 14J and 14K after a review of staff experience applying the guidance in them. Public companies relied on the guidance...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
The SEC recently adopted amendments to Rule 14a-8 under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 to tighten the requirements that govern the initial submission and resubmission of shareholder proposals for inclusion in a company’s...more
On September 23, the Securities and Exchange Commission adopted amendments to the “shareholder proposal rule” set forth in Rule 14a-8 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, which governs the process for a shareholder to have...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
On September 23, 2020, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted amendments to modernize Rule 14a-8, which governs the process for shareholder proposals to be included in a company’s proxy statement. ...more
On September 23, 2020, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted amendments to Rule 14a-8 promulgated under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (Rule 14a-8). The SEC initially proposed amendments to Rule 14a-8...more
On September 23rd, the Commission adopted rules altering the shareholder proposals submission (and re-submission) framework under Rule 14a-8 of the Exchange Act for the first time in over twenty years....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
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
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
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 staff of the Division of Corporation Finance of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published Staff Legal Bulletin (SLB) No. 14K providing guidance on Rule 14a-8 under the Securities Exchange...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
Earlier this month, the SEC’s Division of Corporation Finance announced that its staff may respond orally instead of in writing to some shareholder proposal no-action requests, beginning with the 2019-2020 proxy season. ...more