It’s starting to look like the norm is that companies settle if they get sued after they decide to exclude a shareholder proposal. But whereas the other two settlements so far this proxy season involved the companies agreeing to include the shareholder proposal in their proxies – as the “Responsible Investor” reports in this article – this third company settled a lawsuit by agreeing to …
Section 16 for FPIs: Temporary No-Action Relief for Insiders in War-Torn Countries
On Friday, Corp Fin granted global no-action relief to insiders of foreign private issuers in countries impacted directly by the war going on in Iran – so that the compliance deadline for those insiders is April 20th (rather than March 18th). The countries impacted are those “organized and headquartered in Israel or any other foreign jurisdiction in the geographical region directly affected by the conflict.” …
Section 16 for FPIs: Delinquency Relief Available
Knowing that the SEC’s EDGAR staff is facing a backlog to process a deluge of Form IDs – which will contribute to delinquencies in the early days for FPIs required to file their Form 3s on March 18th – Corp Fin added these two additional FAQs last night to the five FAQs it posted last week: “(6) Question: A director or officer of a foreign …
The Shareholder Proposal Exclusion Risk Is Real: Two More Lawsuits Filed
For the proxy season, we are now at a total of five lawsuits filed after Rule 14a-8(j) notices were sent to the SEC, as two new lawsuits were filed since I last blogged that two of these lawsuits had settled (with the company agreeing to include the proposal in their proxy as part of each settlement). The two new lawsuits are:
Section 16 for FPIs: Corp Fin Posts Five FAQs
Yesterday, Corp Fin posted a set of five FAQs related to the Section 16 obligations that commence on March 18th for insiders of foreign private issuers (those that aren’t exempt). The FAQs deal with the issues of:
A Small Hodgepodge of New – and Revised – CDIs
Since it seems like we can’t go a week without new or revised CDIs from Corp Fin – the gift that keeps on giving – of course, we had a few new ones drop on Friday. Most of the revised CDIs relate to Rule 701 and in many of those, the only thing that changed was the amount got bumped from $5 million to $10 …
Just In! SEC Issues Order Providing Section 16(a) Relief for Certain Foreign Private Issuers!
Here’s a note that Cooley’s Courtney Thorne just posted on LinkedIn: “Less than an hour ago, the SEC issued an exemptive order – Release No. 34-104931 – granting conditional relief from the Section 16(a) insider reporting requirements for directors and officers of certain foreign private issuers that commence on March 18th. We at Team Cooley LLP (led by the incredible Reid Hooper on this initiative) …
Section 16 Reporting Obligations for FPI Insiders Begins March 18th (After SEC Adopted New Rules Last Week)
With just a few weeks before the March 18th start date of Section 16(a) obligations for insiders of foreign private issuers, here’s a Cooley Alert – which includes all you need to know about last week’s 47-page adopting release that conforms the Section 16 rules with the newly enacted “Holding Foreign Insiders Accountable Act” (HFIAA) – penned by Reid Hooper, Luci Altman, Jie Zhang, Darren …
Vanguard Settles State Antitrust Suit By Committing to Remain Passive
Last week, as noted in this press release, Vanguard settled antitrust challenges from a group of 13 state attorney generals by agreeing to pay $29.5 million and bolster its passive investing approach. The suit had been brought in the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Texas over Vanguard’s climate policies. As noted in this blog, the DOJ and FTC also have been pressuring …
An AI-Alternative Proxy Advisor: Tumelo
With two investors having recently announced they would no longer be using traditional proxy advisors in the US, I thought it would be a good time to sit down with Will Goodwin – co-founder of Tumelo – to learn more about ProxyBeacon, an AI tool that is designed to support investment stewardship teams with faster, customized and auditable proxy research and recommendations. Romanek: How does …