The US Supreme Court issued an order on April 6 staying the district court vacatur of the US Environmental Protection Agency’s 2020 Clean Water Act Section 401 Certification Rule, which.
On December 16, the Department of Labor (the “Department”) published its
final regulation addressing the fiduciary duties that apply to proxy voting and the exercise of other shareholder rights in connection with investments held by ERISA-covered plans. 29 CFR §2550.404a-1(e); 85 Fed. Reg. 81658 (Dec. 16, 2020) (the “Final Rule”) (attached). The Final Rule represents several significant changes to the Department’s proposed proxy voting regulation, issued just over three months ago (the “Proposed Rule”). 85 Fed. Reg. 55219 (Sept. 4, 2020). The Department received over 300 written comment letters as well as 6,700 form letter submissions in response to the Proposed Rule.
The Final Rule reiterates the Department’s long-held view that when voting (or not voting) proxies, plan fiduciaries must consider the economic significance of the issue on the plan’s investment. But it explicitly rejects the broader set of considerations that it had previously articulated in