Lessons from the 2022 Proxy Season—Episode 4: Special Meeting Thresholds and Other Governance Proposals

S&C Corporate Governance co-heads Marc Treviño and Melissa Sawyer conclude their discussion of shareholder proposal trends from the 2022 proxy season by discussing governance proposals.

 

They note that nearly all of the increase in shareholder proposals over the past decade is due to environmental, social and political proposals, as opposed to governance proposals. Still, governance proposals raise important issues and their proponents have become sophisticated about how they submit these proposals. 

 

Proposals seeking to lower the threshold of ownership needed for shareholders to call a special meeting was the largest category of structural governance proposals this year. Marc and Melissa note that the companies that defeated these proposals mostly demonstrated that the requested threshold would essentially give too much power to a single shareholder or to a couple of large holders.

 

Click here to learn more about S&C’s 2022 Proxy Season Review and watch our recent webinar.