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Challenges in Meeting 2030 Climate Goals? What To Do Now

I was talking to Cooley’s Beth Sasfai and Michael Mencher about the challenges many companies are facing with ambitious climate goals that no longer seem realistic. Here’s what Beth and Michael told me (also see them in this 3-minute video with Emma Bichet about the same topic): Maybe you set 2030 targets way back in 2019 or 2020 – or recently set targets to meet …

D&O Questionnaires: How In-House Practitioners Must Use Their Judgment (Part 2)

Here is Part 2 of a two-part blog series about nine aspects of the D&O questionnaire process for which in-house lawyers must use their judgment (here is Part 1 covering the first three aspects and more): 4. Frame the question properly It’s important how you frame the question. This bears repeating: It’s important how you frame the question. For those areas where you expect there …

ISS Issues FAQ on Meaning of ‘Robust’ Clawback Policy

Here’s an excerpt from this Cooley Alert by Ali Murata, Barbara Mirza, Michael Bergmann, and Janice Chan about new FAQ 46 of ISS’ Executive Compensation FAQs: “In short, the new FAQ specifies that a clawback policy will not be viewed as “robust” for purposes of ISS’ Executive Compensation Analysis unless it extends beyond Dodd-Frank requirements and applies to all time-vesting awards as well as performance-vesting …

D&O Questionnaires: How In-House Practitioners Must Use Their Judgment

It’s that time of year. Time to dust off your D&O questionnaire and figure out what to do now for the upcoming proxy season. The D&O questionnaire is an important part of the proxy drafting process. When I joined Cooley, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that we have our own electronic D&O questionnaire product – Cooley D+O. I was talking with Luci Altman …

ISS Benchmark Survey Results Highlight P4P Misalignment Policy

Last week, ISS issued a press release about the results of its latest benchmark survey (here’s the 22-page summary of the results). Nothing earth-shattering this year. We should see this year’s policy updates from ISS next month. Probably the most interesting result from the survey relates to the ratio of performance-based to time-based equity awards in the event of a quantitative pay-for-performance (P4P) misalignment. ISS’ …

How Do You Know Who to Engage With?

Who makes the voting decision at a particular investor can vary. For the larger investors, they tend to have stewardship teams who vote and handle engagements – and that is straightforward. Sometimes stewardship teams are referred to as proxy committees. Beyond that, it can be tricky and take experience to learn how each investor operates and who are the players. You could have an active …