An influential whitepaper making the rounds in corporate governance circles is advocating that the Securities and Exchange Commission take a go-slow approach to reforming the fractured state of shareholder communications as it prepares for a larger overhaul of proxy rules later this year.
The paper, commissioned by the Council Of Institutional Investors, concludes that the SEC should take an “incremental” approach to increase shareowners’ and companies’ ability to communicate directly, rather than scrap the existing structure entirely. It does, however, still call for the eventual elimination of the OBO/NOBO difference—the two classes of shareholders, “objecting beneficial owners” and ...