News & Insights

A few days after SEC Chair Jay Clayton introduced proposed rule changes that would drastically curtail the rights of investors to file shareholder proposals on important environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concerns, CREDO Action, the advocacy arm of CREDO Mobile, posted an online petition opposing the new rules. The petition garnered 50,461 supporters, by far the largest public statement of opposition to this SEC action from any group.

Newground Social Investment co-filed a shareholder proposal to Facebook that calls on the company to address systemic operational issues that have compromised privacy, led to serious human rights abuses (including genocide and human trafficking), and allowed Russia and others to meddle in the elections of Britain, America, and other countries. The goal of the proposal is to reestablish the platform as a positive force for connecting people and for building peaceful, civil, and democratic societies around the world.

The SEC voted today to consider sweeping changes to the regulations governing the shareholder proposal process which negatively impact small investors as well as proxy advisory services. The proposed changes to Rule 14a-8 include substantially more strict and complicated thresholds for filing, significantly higher resubmission requirements, serious free speech infringements on independent third-party proxy advisory services, and onerous restrictions on an investor’s essential agency right to seek assistance.

Amazon rigs the vote by using two different formulas when counting: one that favors the board election, and another that under-counts shareholder items.

Amazon's proxy engages in Formula Swapping – it uses a favorable vote-counting formula for management's board election, but a more repressive formula to count shareholder proposals. This inconsistent treatment disproportionately benefits management while depressing the tally on shareholder items. This puts stockholders at risk, and reflects the faulty logic that a Company can divine voter intent.

Investor Voice, representing shareholders of Newground Social Investment, reached an agreement with Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (ticker: AMP) that significantly expands transparency of the company’s election-related spending.

For perhaps the first time ever, current employees of Seattle tech giant Amazon.com have directly filed a shareholder proposal – one that calls on the company to disclose how it can ratchet down emissions to reduce dependence on fossil fuels in line with the Paris Climate Agreement.

Investor Voice and Newground Social Investment have joined with a coalition of investors to back a shareholder proposal that calls on Alphabet, Inc. (parent company of Google, ticker: GOOGL) to rethink its development of a censored search product for use in China.

The year's proxy season kicked off today with the publication of ICCR’s 2019 Proxy Resolutions and Voting Guide. The Guide presents some 250 shareholder proposals that have been filed or co-filed by members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), that address a wide range of ESG (Environment, Social, and Governance) issues – on such diverse topics as political spending disclosure, climate change, human rights, diversity & inclusion, immigration, and data privacy.

New General Electric CEO Larry Culp’s emphasis on transparency apparently now extends to the company’s political operations. GE executives just decided to broaden the company’s disclosures of political donations to include trade association dues as well as gifts to “social welfare” nonprofits, a.k.a. 501(c)(4)s, often used to funnel 'dark money' to candidates.

General Electric announced it would become more transparent – starting this month – by disclosing any contributions it makes to so-called social welfare organizations, a category of nonprofit groups that often sponsor campaign outreach and political attack ads. GE agreed to the array of new policies as a result of a shareholder resolution and negotiations with Investor Voice.

General Electric will begin disclosing contributions to 501(c)(4) "social welfare" organizations and non-tax-deductible contributions to major trade associations, both of which can be spent on elections. The agreement was reached with Investor Voice after filing a proxy proposal on the subject.

For the first time, GE has agreed to robust disclosure of payments made to trade associations and secretive “social welfare” organizations, also known as 501(c)(4) groups – payments that might be used for election-related purposes. Investor Voice filed a shareholder proposal in September that urged the company to embrace greater transparency by disclosing such payments.

In public comments delivered to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Investor Voice urged the Agency to resist pressure from self-interested corporations and their lobbyists to cripple the shareholder engagement provisions of the proxy process.

At Chevron’s May 30, 2018 annual meeting Newground Social Investment and Investor Voice called for a lower and more reasonable 10% threshold to convene a Special Meeting (it’s currently 15%). Here is the full text of the statement presented by Simon Billenness on our behalf.

At the May 30, 2018 annual meeting of shareholders, Newground Social Investment and Investor Voice called on Amazon to end a ‘double standard against stockholders’ and adopt a fair, democratic, simple-majority formula for counting shareholder votes.

Below is the full text of the shareholder proposal on fair and democratic vote-counting presented by Newground Social Investment and Investor Voice at the May 30, 2018 annual meeting of Amazon ($AMZN) in Seattle.

Below is the full text of the shareholder proposal on lowering the threshold for Special Meetings presented by Newground Social Investment and Investor Voice at the May 30, 2018 annual meeting of Chevron ($CVX) in San Ramon, California.