Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS) released its 2019 Americas Proxy Voting Guidelines
Updates effective for meetings held on or after February
1, 2019. Most notably, and as announced last year (see our November
20, 2017 Update,
ISS Releases Final 2018 Voting PolicyUpdates for
Canada ), ISS is (i) expanding the scope of its Canadian
board gender diversity policy to cover a broader universe of
"widely held" companies listed on the Toronto Stock
Exchange (TSX) and (ii) removing the attendance factor from, and
increasing the thresholds of, its Canadian overboarding policy.
Broadened Scope of Gender Diversity Policy
ISS introduced its board gender diversity policy for the 2018
proxy season for S&P/TSX Composite Index companies. Beginning
in the 2019 proxy season, the policy will apply to
"widely-held" companies, which ISS characterizes as not
only S&P/TSX Composite Index companies, but also other
companies ISS designates as such based on the number of ISS
