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As calendar year-end companies received shareholder proposals for their 2021 annual meetings, they faced a variety of uncertainties and challenges, including navigating the COVID-19 pandemic, addressing the racial inequities brought to the fore by the killings of George Floyd and others, and steering through a hyper-partisan and unprecedented U.S. presidential transition. The shareholder proposals received by companies reflected many of these broad themes.
Unlike in the prior three years, the staff of the Division of Corporation Finance (Staff) of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) did not issue new guidance regarding companies’ ability to exclude shareholder proposals from their proxy statements heading into the 2021 season. Although this may have hinted at some stability in the no-action process, that was not to be the case. The Staff issued significantly fewer no-action response letters than in previou