July 25, 2010
The debate around comply or explain as a concept took an interesting turn last week when three of the UK’s largest pension fund investors publicly broke ranks on the issue of annual director elections. In a letter published in the Financial Times, Railpen, USS and Hermes, the three largest UK …… continue reading >>
July 14, 2010
Fair corporate suffrage is an important right that should attach to every equity security
Source: United States Congress, 1934
There’s no small irony that the first shareholder voting regulations were introduced in the aftermath of ‘The Great Crash’. Now, another market collapse has brought regulators full circle and owners of US companies finally have their chance to …… continue reading >>
June 22, 2010
Mary Schapiro, chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission is a step closer to straightening out America’s proxy plumbing. In a speech made at the Stanford University Law School Directors College on June 20th, Schapiro outlined the Commission’s current thinking.
“the Commission will soon consider publishing a concept release soliciting detailed ideas about how to …… continue reading >>
June 22, 2010
As elected representatives in the US enter the final stages of merging the two competing financial services reform bills, investors are becoming increasingly anxious that their key reform proposal, access to the proxy, will be rendered useless.
From the outset, both the House and Senate versions of the reform bills have either supported or required the SEC to adopt some form of proxy access, leaving it will be up to the SEC to decide on the implementation details. A last minute amendment proposed at the end of last week introduced a 5% and two year ownership threshold for a single shareholder to be able to nominate their own directors. As the Council of Institutional Investors pointed out in an open letter to Barney Frank, Chairman of the House Committee on Financial Services: “even if the 10 largest public pension funds in the nation were to successfully aggregate their holdings of a single public company’s shares, those funds combined would rarely if ever be able to clear a five percent hurdle.”
According to US press reports, Senator Dodd proposed the limits at the request of the White House, in response to the lobbying efforts of the Business Roundtable and others which has been concerned about the authority of the SEC to implement proxy access rules. Valerie Jarrett, a senior White House adviser and according to US media, an Obama confidante, is the administration liaison to the Business Roundtable.
The irony of the White House’s involvement in watering down proxy access will not be lost on BP investors who earlier this year lobbied the company on its oil tar sands projects through a shareholder resolution process.
June 18, 2010
The activist shareholder Guy Wyser-Pratte has challenged the outcome of the AGM of Lagardère, held on 27 April, and requested the French market regulator, the AMF, to verify the procedures for the transmission of the votes submitted to the meeting.
In a letter dated 8 June 2010, Wyser-Pratte states that he has serious doubts about …… continue reading >>
June 11, 2010
CalPERS and 20 other public pension plans have written to key US lawmakers urging them to keep corporate governance provisions in the final version of a proposed financial regulations reform bill.
The US House of Representatives and Senate have each passed versions of reform legislation and now must now merge the two bills. Both measures include …… continue reading >>
June 4, 2010
Yesterday’s news that JP Morgan has been hit with the largest fine ever handed down by the FSA might not appear to have any direct connection to shareholder stewardship, after all it wasn’t their securities servicing division found to be at fault. But bear with us.
Banks have strict rules which …… continue reading >>
May 28, 2010
New governance standards for UK-listed companies looks set to split investors over the FRC’s proposals that the 350 largest companies should propose all their directors for annual election.
The UK Corporate Governance Code, formerly known as the Combined Code, sets out standards of governance for listed companies. Companies are required either to follow the Code …… continue reading >>
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