Key Shareholder Proposals
The 2014 Proxy Season is quickly approaching. In 2013, U.S.
trends have emerged with respect to the proposals filed by
shareholders with S&P 500 and Russell 2000 corporations. Four
main themes of interest stand out.
First, shareholder proposals have again been filed to implement
proxy access. The proposals seek to allow a shareholder or a group
of shareholders under certain conditions to have their own director
candidates included in the proxy form. Such proxy access would be
conditional on the shareholders holding a certain threshold of the
corporation's shares (e.g. 3%) for a certain period of time
(e.g. 3 years).
Second, U.S. corporations continue to be targeted with majority
voting proposals introduced for the stated purpose of improving
shareholder democracy. While majority voting is becoming standard
in large U.S. corporations, with 84% of S&P 500 corporations
having now adopted such a policy, majority voting is not as
prevalent
