Results for: Nasdaq diversity
Another complaint filed against California board diversity statutes
Yesterday, yet another complaint was filed in federal district court charging that California’s board diversity statutes, SB 826 and AB 979, are unconstitutional under the equal protection provisions of the 14th Amendment. This complaint was filed by The National Center for Public Policy Research, which, you may recall, has also filed a petition challenging the Nasdaq board diversity rule (see this PubCo post and this PubCo post). The NCPPR describes itself as “a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that supports free market solutions to social problems and opposes corporate and shareholder social activism that detracts from the goal of maximizing shareholder returns.” The case is National Center for Public Policy Research v. Weber, and the initial scheduling conference for this case isn’t set to occur until March of next year.
Hearing on board gender diversity statute—will the court issue a preliminary injunction? (Updated)
On October 19, a federal district court judge held a hearing on a motion for a preliminary injunction in Meland v. Weber, a case challenging SB 826, California’s board gender diversity statute, on the basis that it is unconstitutional under the equal protection provisions of the 14th Amendment. The judge had previously dismissed the case on the basis of lack of standing, but was reversed by the 9th Circuit. What did the hearing reveal? (This post has been updated to reflect additional information regarding the hearing. See “At the hearing” below.)
Hearing on board gender diversity statute—will the court issue a preliminary injunction?
On October 19, a federal district court judge held a hearing on a motion for a preliminary injunction in Meland v. Weber, a case challenging SB 826, California’s board gender diversity statute, on the basis that it is unconstitutional under the equal protection provisions of the 14th Amendment. The judge had previously dismissed the case on the basis of lack of standing, but was reversed by the 9th Circuit. What did the hearing reveal?
The Conference Board reports on board diversity
The Conference Board has just released a new report, Corporate Board Practices in the Russell 3000, S&P 500, and S&P MidCap 400: 2021 Edition, a primary focus of which is board diversity. According to the press release, the study is the “most current and comprehensive review of board composition, director demographics, and governance practices at US public companies.” Key to the study is that more companies are now actually disclosing the racial and ethnic composition of their boards (based on self-reporting by directors): companies providing data are up from 24% of the S&P 500 in 2020 to 59% in 2021, and from 7.7% of the Russell 3000 in 2020 to 26.9% in 2021. With regard to progress in board diversity, the data shows that women have made significant advances—on the Russell 3000 this year, women represented about 38% of this year’s newly elected class of directors, bringing total representation of women on Russell 3000 boards to 24.4%, up from 21.9% in 2020. However, boards have significant catching up to do when it comes to racial and ethnic diversity. Based on self-reported data, “boards remain overwhelmingly white,” and, for 2021, the class of new directors was 78.3% white, with only 11.5% African-American, 6.5% Latinx/Hispanic and 3.1% Asian, Hawaiian or Pacific Islander.
First legal challenge to California’s board gender diversity statute heads to trial
You might remember that the first legal challenge to California’s board gender diversity statute, Crest v. Alex Padilla, was a complaint filed in 2019 in California state court by three California taxpayers seeking to prevent implementation and enforcement of the law. Framed as a “taxpayer suit,” the litigation sought to enjoin Alex Padilla, the then-California Secretary of State (now U.S. Senator), from expending taxpayer funds and taxpayer-financed resources to enforce or implement the law, SB 826, alleging that the law’s mandate is an unconstitutional gender-based quota and violates the California constitution. The court in that case has just denied each side’s motion for summary judgment after concluding that there were triable issues of material fact. The case will now be going to trial, which was initially set for October 25. However, on the court’s own motion, the trial was “trailed” to December 1. Stay tuned.
New survey: diversity on Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 boards
Audit firm Deloitte and the Alliance for Board Diversity have just released the Missing Pieces Report: The Board Diversity Census of Women and Minorities on Fortune 500 Boards, a study examining the representation of women and racial/ethnic minorities (including Black, Asian/Pacific Islander and Hispanic persons) on public company boards among the Fortune 100 and Fortune 500 companies. The analysis of the Fortune 100 began in 2004 and the Fortune 500 in 2010, based on public filings reviewed through the end of June 2020. The Report finds that the rate of change has been quite slow, espcially for some demographic groups. It remains to be seen whether the social unrest roiling the U.S. body politic—which has brought systemic racial inequity and injustice, exacerbated by the pandemic, into sharp focus—together with actions to mandate or encourage board diversity, such as California’s AB 979 or, if approved, the Nasdaq board diversity proposal, will accelerate the rate of change evidenced in the Report.
What role should the exchanges play in encouraging board diversity?
Board diversity and how (and whether) to try to achieve it is a topic that has certainly appeared on a lot of corporate governance agendas in the last few years. Institutional investors have applied pressure on corporations, shareholders have submitted precatory proposals for shareholder votes, investment banks have insisted on diverse boards as preconditions for taking companies public, and California and a number of other states have adopted legislation, whether it be a board diversity mandate, a soft target or simply a disclosure requirement. Most recently, Nasdaq filed with the SEC a proposal for new listing rules regarding board diversity and disclosure, adopting a comply-or-explain approach. According to Nasdaq’s President and CEO, Adena Friedman, “Nasdaq’s purpose is to champion inclusive growth and prosperity to power stronger economies….Our goal with this proposal is to provide a transparent framework for?Nasdaq-listed companies to present their board composition and diversity philosophy effectively to all stakeholders; we believe this listing rule is one step in a broader journey to achieve inclusive representation across corporate America.”? Interestingly, however, the NYSE has not followed suit. In fact, in an interview on Bloomberg TV in December, NYSE President Stacey Cunningham said, when asked about the Nasdaq proposal, that it was not something that they were considering adopting at the NYSE: “When we use exchange listing standards to require things like diversity profiles or others, we’re defining the investable universe…. We just don’t think we should be using our listing standards because that forces our views on investors and prevents them from being able to make the choices that they want to make and that they are making.” In contrast to the SEC, whose remit is largely disclosure, the exchanges regularly impose corporate governance requirements. Should board diversity be one of them?
After climate, is enhanced diversity disclosure next?
It’s not just mandatory climate disclosure that’s on the agenda for Acting SEC Chair Allison Lee. Last week, as reported by Reuters, in remarks to a forum for securities industry professionals, she said that the SEC “should think more ‘creatively and broadly’ about tackling issues of race and gender diversity, including by potentially revisiting public companies’ disclosure requirements.” In the past, Lee has not hesitated to emphasize her concerns about the absence of prescriptive requirements in rulemakings that would have more certainly elicited disclosure regarding diversity. (See, for example, her statement regarding amendments to Reg S-K as well as her remarks to the Council of Institutional Investors, Diversity Matters, Disclosure Works, and the SEC Can Do More.) Now that she has directed Corp Fin to focus on climate disclosure, will diversity be next?
New report looks at board gender diversity in California
With the passage of SB 826 in 2018, California became the first state to mandate board gender diversity (see this PubCo post). The California Partners Project, which was founded by California’s current First Lady, has just released a new progress report on women’s representation on boards of California public companies, tracking the changes in gender diversity on California boards since enactment of the law. According to the report, “[r]esearch has shown us that companies with women on the board of directors outperform those without them. Women directors are more effective at managing risk, better able to balance long-term priorities, and have a keen sense of what customers, shareholders, and employees need to thrive.” The report observes that, if “all of the companies in the Russell 3000 followed California’s lead, over 3,500 women’s voices would be added to corporate governance.”
New report on California board gender diversity mandate
As required by SB 826, California’s board gender diversity law, the California Secretary of State has posted its March 2020 report on the status of compliance with the new law. The report combines information gathered in the July 2019 report (see this PubCo post) with data for the additional six-month period of July 1, 2019 through December 31, 2019. The report counts 625 publicly held corporations that identified principal executive offices in California in their 2019 10-Ks, but indicates that only 330 of these “impacted corporations” had filed a 2019 California Publicly Traded Corporate Disclosure Statement, which would reflect their compliance with the board gender diversity requirement. Of the 330 companies that had filed, 282 reported that they were in compliance with the board gender diversity mandate.
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