Inside Track: Shareholder Proposals ‘Are Like the Canary in a Coal Mine’
General counsel who want a peek into which issues will be occupying much of their time in the coming years should spend a few minutes reviewing the deluge of shareholder proposals that public companies are putting to a vote this proxy season. It’s a minefield of complex, and potentially expensive-to-address, topics. Let’s look at Amazon, for instance. At its annual meeting May 25, shareholders voted on a whopping 15 proposals on topics ranging from the safety of warehouse workers and gender pay differences to whether contracts with governments could violate human rights. … As the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance put it, “From climate change to racial injustice, expectations that companies will take these matters seriously have never been higher. The 2022 proxy season will show just how focused investors are on making sure the companies they invest in are addressing them.”