from In These Times:
No New Year Resolutions?SEC proposes curbing shareholder power
By Kari Lydersen
The U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) has proposed changes that could prevent many shareholders from raising issues of social and environmental corporate responsibility.
Over the past few decades, shareholder resolutions have played a significant role in persuading major companies to improve their labor, environmental and corporate governance practices.
In 2004, Coca-Cola executives backed a shareholder resolution that led the company to invest in HIV prevention in Africa. The measure passed with flying colors.
Over the past 15 years, a series of shareholder resolutions have helped force Nike to monitor labor conditions in its international supply chain. And shareholder resolutions have persuaded corporations, including Tyco and American Electric Power, to cut back on greenhouse gas emissions.
But the SEC has proposed curbing these non-binding shareholder resolutions after a Sept. 2006 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second District in New York spurred the agency to clarify a rule on whether shareholders can pass resolutions to nominate a person for a company’s board of directors. As a result of the court’s decision, the SEC drafted two proposals. The first would prevent such nominations. The second would allow them—but only with extensive restrictions. In the document explaining these proposals, SEC commissioners also discussed changing the way with which shareholder resolutions are dealt. ......(more)
The complete piece is at:
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3448/no_new_year_resolutions/