Broadridge U.S. Changes Its Policy On Interim Voting Reports

Broadridge Financial Solutions Inc. ("Broadridge"), the largest provider of proxy distribution and tallying services for North American companies, recently announced a change to its U.S. policy on providing interim voting results during proxy contests. Under the new policy, Broadridge will only provide each proxy contest participant (i.e. the corporation and the dissident shareholder) with interim voting reports on the shareholders supporting that participant. It will no longer provide comprehensive interim reports on shareholders supporting other participants, unless both sides agree to share interim voting results.

This new policy, which mirrors the current approach in Canada, will significantly effect not only U.S. issuers but also Canadian issuers with U.S. shareholders. Whereas the availability of complete preliminary voting data previously enabled U.S. proxy contest participants to monitor for a quorum, predict likely outcomes, detect errors in voting data and