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Over 50,000 Sign Petition Opposing SEC's Effort to Silence Shareholder Voices Thumbnail

Over 50,000 Sign Petition Opposing SEC's Effort to Silence Shareholder Voices

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.

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Facebook: Shareholder Proposal to #RebootFacebook  Thumbnail

Facebook: Shareholder Proposal to #RebootFacebook

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.

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Press Release: SEC’s Proposed Rule Changes Muzzle Shareholders and Shield CEOs From Accountability Thumbnail

Press Release: SEC’s Proposed Rule Changes Muzzle Shareholders and Shield CEOs From Accountability

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.

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Unfair Voting at Amazon Thumbnail

Unfair Voting at Amazon

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.

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2019 Proxy Season: Investors focus on Transparency, Climate & Amazon.com Thumbnail

2019 Proxy Season: Investors focus on Transparency, Climate & Amazon.com

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.

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GE is Shedding More Light on its Political Donations Thumbnail

GE is Shedding More Light on its Political Donations

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.

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Agenda (a Financial Times service): GE Opens Its Books on Political Spending Thumbnail

Agenda (a Financial Times service): GE Opens Its Books on Political Spending

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.

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Press Release: General Electric Embraces Broader Disclosure of Political Spending – Dialogue Spurred by Shareholder Engagement Thumbnail

Press Release: General Electric Embraces Broader Disclosure of Political Spending – Dialogue Spurred by Shareholder Engagement

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.

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Presentation on Special Meetings at Chevron AGM Thumbnail

Presentation on Special Meetings at Chevron AGM

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.

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