Shareholder proposal rule
The 2025 proxy season (July 1, 2024 – June 20, 2025, meetings) concluded with a significant drop in the volume of shareholder proposals from the 2024 proxy season’s record high, as environmental and social (E&S) proposals...more
Recently, BlackRock released its “2024 Investment Stewardship Annual Report” – here’s a 25-page executive summary. Here are six lessons learned – although note this is all about last year; not the latest proxy season...more
The Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) recently made certain announcements that reflect the current administration’s reduced emphasis on climate-related financial regulation. First, the SEC withdrew a proposed rulemaking...more
On June 20, 2025, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill 2337 ("SB 2337") to impose first-of-its-kind regulation and significant disclosure obligations on proxy advisors, such as ISS and Glass Lewis. SB 2337 aims to...more
On June 20, 2025, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed into law Senate Bill 2337 (SB 2337), which imposes new regulations on proxy advisory firms — such as ISS and Glass Lewis — when providing voting recommendations and other...more
Recently, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 2337 (SB 2337) in an effort to regulate proxy advisors – including ISS and Glass Lewis – when they provide proxy voting recommendations for those companies that are either...more
In a significant but not unsurprising policy shift, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has announced the withdrawal of proposed rules aimed at enhancing ESG disclosures and modifying shareholder proposal...more
In a broad reversal of course on proposed rules issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under the leadership of former SEC Chair Gary Gensler, on June 12, 2025, the SEC issued a notice withdrawing 14 of the...more
On June 12, 2025, the SEC announced its withdrawal of previously proposed amendments to Rule 14a-8. ...more
Last week, the SEC issued a notice of formal withdrawal for 14 proposed rulemakings that were issued a few years ago – these rules were never adopted. The only Corp Fin rulemaking in this group was this proposal from 2022...more
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) formally withdrew the following proposed Gensler era rulemakings: Substantial Implementation, Duplication, and Resubmission of Shareholder Proposals Under Exchange Act Rule...more
The SEC has withdrawn proposed rules captioned “Substantial Implementation, Duplication, and Resubmission of Shareholder Proposals Under Exchange Act Rule 14a-8. In conjunction therewith the SEC announced “The Commission does...more
In the first Trump Administration, the Securities and Exchange Commission promulgated certain rules that had the effect of erecting barriers to activist investors seeking to have shareholder proposals--often involving topics...more
Welcome to the latest edition of the Sustainability Spotlight, your place to keep up with all the ESG action – federal and state enforcement, shareholder proposals and litigation, and state attorney general actions. This...more
On May 19, 2025, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed Senate Bill No. 1057 (SB 1057) into law....more
As we previously addressed here, on February 12, 2025, the Staff of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Corporation Finance published Staff Legal Bulletin 14M (“SLB 14M”). Among other things, SLB 14M...more
Nasdaq policy recommendations - On March 31, Nasdaq announced the release of a comprehensive set of policy recommendations in a paper titled, “Advancing the U.S. Public Markets: Unlocking Capital Formation for a Stronger...more
As we’ve blogged about recently, Texas has taken a number of steps to bolster its reputation as a business-friendly state. The latest is a new law aimed at making it harder for shareholder proponents to get a proposal (other...more
SEC Issues New Guidance on Exclusion of Shareholder Proposals - Since the beginning of the year, the US Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Division of Corporation Finance staff (Corp Fin Staff) has issued several...more
Delaware has long been the jurisdiction of choice for corporations, but certain recent controversial judicial decisions have resulted in a number of high-profile companies reincorporating (or considering reincorporation) into...more
Public companies are revisiting their disclosures to keep up with recent EOs and SEC developments this proxy season....more
Last year, I reported that the stockholders of Fidelity National Financial, Inc. had failed to approve a proposal to convert the corporation from a Delaware to a Nevada corporation. The company has not given up on the...more
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
When I was in-house, one of the nerve-wracking aspects of the annual shareholders meeting was bracing yourself for the unexpected. Preparing as much as you can for something unexpected is a good idea – and one way to do that...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