Category: Corporate Governance
SEC cuts key provisions of proxy advisor regulations
[This post revises and updates my earlier post primarily to reflect the contents of the proposing release.]
At an open meeting last week, the SEC voted, three to two, to adopt new amendments to the rules regarding proxy advisory firms, such as ISS and Glass Lewis—which the SEC refers to as proxy voting advice businesses, or “PVABs”—terms that the commissioners seemed to think…hmmm… needed some work. The amendments to the PVAB rules reverse some of the key provisions governing proxy voting advice that were adopted in July 2020 (referred to as the 2020 Final Rules). Those rules had codified the SEC’s interpretation that made proxy voting advice subject to the proxy solicitation rules, but added to the exemptions from those solicitation rules two significant new conditions—one requiring disclosure of conflicts of interest and the second designed to facilitate effective engagement between PVABs and the companies that are the subjects of their advice. (See this PubCo post.) Under the new final amendments as adopted last week, proxy voting advice will still be considered a “solicitation” under the proxy rules and proxy advisory firms will still be subject to the requirement to disclose conflicts of interest; however, the new amendments rescind that second central condition designed to facilitate engagement—which some might characterize as a core element, if not the core element, of the 2020 amendments. The amendments also rescind a note to Rule 14a-9, also adopted as part of the 2020 Final Rules, which provided examples of situations in which the failure to disclose certain information in proxy voting advice may be considered misleading. According to the press release, institutional investors and other clients of proxy advisory firms had “continued to express concerns that these conditions could impose increased compliance costs on proxy voting advice businesses and impair the independence and timeliness of their proxy voting advice.” In his statement, SEC Chair Gary Gensler observed that many investors expressed concerns that “certain conditions in the 2020 rule might restrain independent proxy voting advice. Given those concerns, we have revisited certain conditions and determined that the risks they impose to the independence and timeliness of proxy voting advice are not justified by their informational benefits.”
SEC proposes to narrow three substantive exclusions in the shareholder proposal rule
[This post revises and updates my earlier post on this topic primarily to reflect the contents of the proposing release.]
At an open meeting last week, the SEC voted, three to two, to propose new amendments to Rule 14a-8, the shareholder proposal rule. Under Rule 14a-8, a shareholder proposal must be included in a company’s proxy materials “unless the proposal fails to satisfy any of several specified substantive requirements or the proposal or shareholder-proponent does not satisfy certain eligibility or procedural requirements.” The SEC last amended Rule 14a-8 in 2020 to, among other things, raise the eligibility criteria and resubmission thresholds. The SEC is now proposing to amend three of the substantive exclusions on which companies rely to omit shareholder proposals from their proxy materials: Rule 14a-8(i)(10), the “substantial implementation” exclusion, would be amended to specify that a proposal may be excluded as substantially implemented if “the company has already implemented the essential elements of the proposal.” Rule 14a-8(i)(11), the “substantial duplication” exclusion, would be amended to provide that a shareholder proposal substantially duplicates another proposal previously submitted by another proponent for a vote at the same meeting if it “addresses the same subject matter and seeks the same objective by the same means.” Rule 14a-8(i)(12), the resubmission exclusion, would be amended to provide that a shareholder proposal would constitute a “resubmission”—and therefore could be excluded if, among other things, the proposal did not reach specified minimum vote thresholds—if it “substantially duplicates” a prior proposal by “address[ing] the same subject matter and seek[ing] the same objective by the same means.” The SEC indicates that almost half of the no-action requests the staff received under Rule 14a-8 in 2021 were based on these three exclusions. In his statement, SEC Chair Gary Gensler indicated that the proposed amendments would “improve the shareholder proposal process” by providing “greater certainty as to the circumstances in which companies are able to exclude shareholder proposals from their proxy statements.” In the proposing release, the SEC contends that the amendments “are intended to improve the shareholder proposal process based on modern developments and the staff’s observations” and “would facilitate shareholder suffrage and communication between shareholders and the companies they own, as well as among a company’s shareholders, on important issues.” Notably, however, the two dissenting commissioners seemed to view the proposed changes—even though they stop well short of revamping the 2020 eligibility criteria and resubmission thresholds—as an effort to undo or circumvent the balance achieved by the 2020 amendments without actually modifying those aspects of the rules. For example, new Commissioner Mark Uyeda said that the proposed amendments could “effectively nullify the 2020 amendments to the resubmission exclusion and render this basis almost meaningless.”
SEC cuts key provisions of proxy advisor regulations and proposes amendments to Rule 14a-8: will they create regulatory whiplash?
At an open meeting yesterday morning, the SEC welcomed new Commissioner Mark Uyeda and bid farewell to Commissioner Allison Herren Lee. The SEC also voted to adopt new amendments to the rules regarding proxy advisory firms, such as ISS and Glass Lewis—which the SEC refers to as proxy voting advice businesses, or “PVABs”—and to propose new amendments to three of the exclusions in Rule 14a-8, the shareholder proposal rule. The amendments to the PVAB rules reverse some of the key provisions governing proxy voting advice that were adopted in July 2020. In his statement, SEC Chair Gary Gensler observed that many investors expressed concerns that “certain conditions in the 2020 rule might restrain independent proxy voting advice. Given those concerns, we have revisited certain conditions and determined that the risks they impose to the independence and timeliness of proxy voting advice are not justified by their informational benefits.” With regard to the shareholder proposal rule, according to the press release, the proposed amendments were designed to “promote more consistency and predictability in application.” In his statement, Gensler indicated that the proposed amendments would “improve the shareholder proposal process” by providing “greater certainty as to the circumstances in which companies are able to exclude shareholder proposals from their proxy statements.” Both of the SEC’s actions received three-to-two votes—about the only consensus reached in the meeting was that the term “proxy voting advice businesses” and its acronym “PVABs” were clumsy choices. Interestingly, in the case of both of these actions taken by the SEC, amendments to these same rules were adopted in 2020. From the Democratic commissioners’ perspective, these new amendments were intended to clarify and strike a better balance in response to public comments and staff experience, while from the perspective of the Republican commissioners, the amendments ensured only “regulatory whiplash” from the “regulatory seesaw.”
Have we made much progress on board racial and ethnic diversity?
After the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the national protests that it triggered, many of the country’s largest corporations expressed solidarity and pledged support for racial justice and racial and ethnic diversity, equity and inclusion. Some institutional investors also beefed up their proxy voting policies, demanding both greater transparency and more racial and ethnic diversity. One place that companies looked to implement their commitments to DEI was at the board level. Now, about two years after that horrific event, how much progress have companies made? Using the end of proxy season in 2020 as a starting point, ISS has some recent data. ISS concludes that, while substantial progress has been made in board racial and ethnic diversity, “many boards still do not reflect the diversity of their customer base or the demographics of the broader society in which they operate.”
What happened with shareholder proposals for political spending in the 2022 proxy season?
What happened with shareholder proposals for political spending and lobbying in the 2022 proxy season? In these two articles, ISS Corporate Solutions provides us with an update on shareholder proposals for political contributions and lobbying disclosures submitted for the 2022 proxy season. According to ISS, many shareholder proposals addressing political spending and lobbying reflected investor concerns that support of certain candidates and causes or certain lobbying activities may be inconsistent with the stated values or public positions of the company. Drilling down, we also look at more specific data from the Center for Political Accountability regarding shareholder proposals for election spending submitted by its proposal partners for the 2022 proxy season, as well as a preview of what’s on the agenda from CPA for next proxy season.
SEC Acting Chief Accountant cautions again about auditor independence concerns, especially the “checklist compliance mentality”
Auditor independence—or rather the potential absence of same—is apparently still a cause of significant agita at the SEC’s Office of Chief Accountant. In October last year, Acting Chief Accountant Paul Munter issued a statement regarding the importance of auditor independence—a concept that is “foundational to the credibility of the financial statements.” That statement was prompted largely by the trend at that time toward the use of “new and innovative transactions” to access the public markets, such as SPACs, together with the potential effect on independence of increasingly complex tangles of business relationships among audit firms, audit clients and non-audit clients. (See this PubCo post.) But that caution seems not to have been enough to slay the dragon. In this June statement, Munter again addresses auditor independence. The SEC, he observes, “has long-recognized that audits by professional, objective, and skilled accountants that are independent of their audit clients contribute to both investor protection and investor confidence in the financial statements.” This time, Munter focuses his statement on the critical importance of the general standard of auditor independence and recurring issues in recent auditor independence consultations. He also addresses the value of firms’ treating accounting as a profession, one that fosters “a culture of ethical behavior in all their professional activities, but especially with respect to auditor independence.” Munter appears to be especially concerned about the “decreased vigilance” and “ethical deterioration” that may arise out of “checklist compliance mentality,” an unfortunate state of mind he highlights in several contexts. It is important for companies to keep in mind that violations of the auditor independence rules can have serious consequences not only for the audit firm, but also for the audit client. For example, an independence violation may cause the auditor to withdraw the firm’s audit report, requiring the audit client to have a re-audit by another audit firm. As a result, in most cases, inquiry into the topic of auditor independence should certainly be a recurring menu item on the audit committee’s plate.
Will U.S. companies face ESG reporting requirements in the EU?
Some U.S. companies may well have to report on ESG—even if the SEC takes no action on climate or other ESG disclosure proposals! How’s that? According to this press release from the Council of the European Union, the Council and the European Parliament reached a provisional agreement last week on a corporate sustainability reporting directive (CSRD) that would require more detailed reporting on “sustainability issues such as environmental rights, social rights, human rights and governance factors.” The provisional agreement is subject to approval by the Council and the European Parliament. The press release indicates that the requirements would apply to all large companies and all companies listed on regulated markets, as well as to listed small- to medium-size companies (“taking into account their specific characteristics”). Importantly, for companies outside the EU, “the requirement to provide a sustainability report applies to all companies generating a net turnover of €150 million in the EU and which have at least one subsidiary or branch in the EU. These companies must provide a report on their ESG impacts, namely on environmental, social and governance impacts, as defined in this directive.”
Is buying a carbon offset like buying a medieval indulgence?
At a recent meeting of the SEC’s Investor Advisory Committee discussing the SEC’s climate disclosure proposal, a speaker in charge of ESG investing at an asset manager raised the possible risk that companies, faced with a disclosure mandate, would just buy carbon offsets to satisfy investors that they are making progress toward their climate goals. His firm, he said, has been seeing this phenomenon occur, but he thought that the practice could lead to poor outcomes. Companies would probably experience better outcomes, he advised, if they first considered spending those same funds on investments that would actually reduce their carbon footprints. (See this PubCo post. ) What’s that about? While many experts view carbon offsets as essential ingredients in the recipe for net-zero, some commentators worry that they are just part of a “well-intentioned shell game” or perhaps, less generously, a “racket with trees being treated as hostages”? And some think both concepts—essential and racket—may be true in some cases at the same time. Are carbon offsets effective or are they just a way to assuage, as the NYT phrases it, “carbon guilt”?
A jam-packed Spring 2022 agenda for the SEC
The SEC has posted its Spring 2022 Reg-Flex agenda and it’s crammed with pending and new rulemakings—and they’re all going to be proposed or adopted in October! (Ok, admittedly, that’s an exaggeration, but not much of one.) Here is the short-term agenda and here is the long-term agenda. According to SEC Chair Gary Gensler, the “U.S. is blessed with the largest, most sophisticated, and most innovative capital markets in the world….But we cannot take that for granted. As SEC alum Robert Birnbaum and his team said decades ago, ‘no regulation can be static in a dynamic society.’ That core idea still rings true today.” Gensler’s public policy goals for the agenda are “continuing to drive efficiency in our capital markets and modernizing our rules for today’s economy and technologies.” As with recent prior agendas, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce has almost no kind words for the agency’s plans—“flawed goals and a flawed method for achieving them.” In fact, she went so far as to characterize the agenda as “dangerous”: in her view, the agenda represents “the regulatory version of a rip current—fast-moving currents flowing away from shore that can be fatal to swimmers. Just as certain wave and wind conditions can create dangerous rip currents, the pace and character of the rulemakings on this agenda make for dangerous conditions in our capital markets.” There’s no dispute that the agenda is laden with major proposals—human capital, SPACs, board diversity. What’s more, many of these proposals—climate disclosure, cybersecurity, Rule 10b5-1—are apparently at the final rule stage. Whether or not we’ll see a load of public companies submerged by the rip tide of rulemakings remains to be seen, but there’s not much question that implementing them all would certainly be a challenge in any case.
CPA-Zicklin Index to cover Russell 1000 companies
The CPA-Zicklin Index of Corporate Political Disclosure and Accountability (from the Center for Political Accountability and the Zicklin Center for Business Ethics Research at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania) annually benchmarks public companies’ disclosure, management and oversight of corporate political spending. The Index also includes specific rankings for companies based on their Index scores, as well as best practice examples of disclosure and other helpful information. (See this PubCo post.) CPA launched the Index in 2011 following the decision by SCOTUS in Citizens United, benchmarking only the S&P 100. In 2015, it began to benchmark the S&P 500. The Index has just announced that, beginning this fall, it will expand its coverage to the Russell 1000. As reported in MarketWatch, the President of CPA observed that, “[w]ith companies under much greater scrutiny on their election-related spending, it really is incumbent on them that they have strong [governance] policies that they adhere to. They face the threat of boycotts. They face the threat of employee morale problems….They face the threat of very harmful publicity. Bottom lines can be adversely affected by the way companies engage in political spending.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.