B.C. Court Rules Telephone Voting Requires Transparency And Verification

In a recent decision¹ the Supreme Court of British Columbia set aside and declared invalid an annual general meeting of shareholders and the resolutions passed at the meeting following a proxy fight between management and dissident shareholders. The Court found that management's proxy solicitation firm had improperly executed proxies on behalf of shareholders based on instructions given by telephone to representatives of the proxy solicitation firm (the "TeleVote System"). The Court concluded that the TeleVote System failed to provide a contemporaneous, reliable and verifiable record of proxies and voting instructions with the result that the use of such a system was oppressive to shareholders.