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Against the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic and the novel challenges with which public companies around the world have been faced, Glass Lewis & Co. (“Glass Lewis”) and Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (“ISS”), two established proxy advisory firms, have released updates in connection with how their voting policies will be applied in the course of the 2020 proxy season. The central themes from both advisors are that the COVID-19 pandemic is creating exceptional and difficult circumstances for Boards to navigate, and that the firms will have an increased flexibility in their approach to proxy contest reviews, with an emphasis on the quality of companies’ decision-making, disclosure and reasoning in respect of any changes to governance, compensation and capital structure.…

Continue Reading Proxy Voting Guidelines in the COVID-19 Context

Bill C-25 is a federal government bill that would, if adopted, introduce sweeping changes to the corporate governance regime for reporting issuers incorporated under the Canada Business Corporations Act (CBCA). Like the proverbial tortoise, the bill has moved unhurriedly through the legislative process, in part due to several changes made to the bill since our previous post that discussed Bill C-25. The bill’s enactment would be just one of many “finish lines”, and it may take several years for all provisions of the bill and accompanying regulations to be drafted and brought into force. This post will canvass the amendments made so far to Bill C-25, with a focus on the proposed gender diversity disclosure framework, and will show a path forward to its eventual coming into force.
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Continue Reading Bill C-25 and its Amendments to the CBCA: A Legislative Tortoise Approaches a Finish Line

Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass, Lewis & Co. (Glass Lewis) have both released updates to their Canadian proxy voting recommendation guidelines for the 2018 proxy season.

The following summary outlines the significant changes made by ISS (ISS Updates) and Glass Lewis  (Glass Lewis Updates) to their respective Canadian proxy advisory guidelines.

ISS

Definition of Independence.  ISS has updated its definitions relating to director independence.  Previously, ISS categorized each director as an Inside Executive Director, Affiliated Outside Director or Independent Director.  The new categories are Executive Director, Non-Independent, Non-Executive Director (including former CEOs, controlling shareholders, Non-CEO executives, relatives of executives and persons with professional/financial relationships, among other things) or Independent Director.

Board Gender Diversity.  Beginning February 2019, ISS will generally recommend withholding votes for the chair of the nominating committee, or board chair if no nominating committee chair, where a company has not disclosed a formal written gender diversity policy and has no female directors.  ISS indicates that a written policy should include measurable goals or targets and clear commitments to increasing gender diversity within a reasonable period of time.  The ISS Updates also state that boilerplate or contradictory language may result in withhold recommendations.  The ISS policy will apply to all TSX companies, except companies first listed or graduated from the TSXV within two fiscal years or companies with four or fewer directors.…

Continue Reading 2018 ISS and Glass Lewis Updates

On January 26, 2017, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) published CSA Staff Notice 54-305 Meeting Vote Reconciliation Protocols, which provides guidance for establishing accurate, reliable and accountable meeting vote reconciliation protocols (Protocols). The whole, with the goal of improving the transparency and the quality of shareholder voting and ostensibly, shareholder engagement in publicly traded companies.

The Protocols target key service providers involved in meeting vote reconciliation, namely: CDS, intermediaries (such as bank custodians and investment dealers), the primary intermediary voting agents (such as Broadridge), and transfer agents that act as meeting tabulators (key service providers). The guidance provided by the Protocols addresses the types of operational processes which should be implemented by these key service providers so that they can better work together to improve meeting vote reconciliation. Furthermore, the CSA hope that the Protocols will set the groundwork for paperless voting and information transmission as well as the development of end-to-end voting confirmation capabilities.…

Continue Reading Canadian Securities Regulators Publish Final Proxy Voting Protocols to Improve the Proxy Voting Experience

In today’s marketplace, most shareholder voting is done by way of proxy. Few shareholders choose to attend shareholder meetings in person. Under the current rules of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), shareholders who attend meetings in person typically receive a universal ballot, which allows shareholders to choose from a complete list of all…

Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass, Lewis & Co. (Glass Lewis) have both released updates to their Canadian proxy voting recommendation guidelines for the 2017 proxy season.

The following summary outlines the significant changes made by ISS (ISS Policy Updates) and Glass Lewis (Glass Lewis Guideline Updates) to their respective Canadian…

Bill C-25: Major changes proposed to director elections and other governance matters for CBCA reporting issuers

On September 28, 2016, the federal Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development introduced Bill C-25, An Act to amend the Canada Business Corporations Act, the Canada Cooperatives Act, the Canada Not-for-profit Corporations Act, and the Competition Act. Bill C-25, if enacted, would result in sweeping changes to the corporate governance regime for reporting issuers incorporated under the Canada Business Corporations Act (CBCA).

The CBCA is the incorporating statute for nearly 270,000 corporations. Although most of these are small- or medium-sized and privately held, a large number of Canada’s largest reporting issuers are also governed by the CBCA. The amendments proposed in Bill C-25 stem from a House of Commons committee-led statutory review in 2010, which, in turn, led to a further consultation undertaken in 2014 by Industry Canada.…

Continue Reading Bill C-25: sweeping changes to corporate governance

Seagate Technology’s Unusual Alliance with ValueAct Capital: Is There Method in Seagate’s Madness in Inviting an Activist Wolf into the Fold?

Last month, Seagate Technology plc, an $11 billion company in the data-storage business, announced a secondary block trade in which it facilitated the transfer of roughly 9.5 million ordinary shares, representing an approximate 4%…

Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass, Lewis & Co. (Glass Lewis) have both released updates to their Canadian proxy voting recommendation guidelines for the 2014 proxy season. Glass Lewis released its updates on December 13, 2013 and ISS released its updates on November 21, 2013. The items updated include those pertaining to corporate governance standards, shareholder rights and executive compensation.

The following summary outlines the significant changes made by both ISS and Glass Lewis to their respective Canadian proxy advisory guidelines. These changes will apply to shareholder meetings held on or after February 1, 2014.

Corporate Governance

Director Over-boarding – TSX Companies

ISS will generally consider a director to be “over-boarded” when he or she is a CEO of a public company who sits on more than two additional outside public company boards, or where a director who is not a CEO of a public company sits on more than six public company boards. Based on feedback obtained, ISS has implemented a double-trigger overboarding policy pursuant to which it will generally recommend a withhold vote from an individual director nominee where the director is overboarded and has attended less than 75% of his or her respective board and committee meetings held within the past year without a valid reason.

Persistent Problematic Audit-Related Practices – TSX Companies

ISS will make case-by-case recommendations on members of an audit committee and, in some cases, the entire board if adverse accounting practices are identified and are determined to reach a “level of serious concern.” Some examples provided by ISS of such adverse accounting practices are: accounting fraud, misapplication of applicable accounting standards, or material weaknesses identified in the internal control process. ISS further notes that the analysis of the accounting practices should include a review of the severity, breadth, chronological sequence and duration, as well as efforts by the company to remediate the issue.

Director Independence – TSX and TSXV Companies…
Continue Reading 2014 Updates to Canadian Proxy Advisory Guidelines