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Full-Text Articles in Securities Law
Is Say On Pay All About Pay? The Impact Of Firm Performance, Jill E. Fisch, Darius Palia, Steven Davidoff Solomon
Is Say On Pay All About Pay? The Impact Of Firm Performance, Jill E. Fisch, Darius Palia, Steven Davidoff Solomon
Steven M. Davidoff Solomon
The Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 mandated a number of regulatory reforms including a requirement that large U.S. public companies provide their shareholders with the opportunity to cast a non-binding vote on executive compensation. The “say on pay” vote was designed to rein in excessive levels of executive compensation and to encourage boards to adopt compensation structures that tie executive pay more closely to performance. Although the literature is mixed, many studies question whether the statute has had the desired effect. Shareholders at most companies overwhelmingly approve the compensation packages, and pay levels continue to be high. Although a lack of …
Frozen Charters, Scott Hirst
Frozen Charters, Scott Hirst
Faculty Scholarship
In 2012, the New York Stock Exchange changed its policies to prevent brokers voting shares on corporate governance proposals where they had not received instructions from beneficial owners. Although the change was intended to protect investors and improve corporate governance, it has had the opposite effect: a significant number of U.S. public companies are no longer able to amend important parts of their corporate charters, despite the support of their boards of directors and overwhelming majorities of shareholders. Their charters are frozen.
This paper provides the first empirical and policy analysis of the broker voting change and its significant unintended …
Standing Voting Instructions: Empowering The Excluded Retail Investor, Jill E. Fisch
Standing Voting Instructions: Empowering The Excluded Retail Investor, Jill E. Fisch
All Faculty Scholarship
Despite the increasing importance of shareholder voting, regulators have paid little attention to the rights of retail investors who own approximately 30% of publicly traded companies but who vote less than 30% of their shares. A substantial factor contributing to this low turnout is the antiquated mechanism by which retail investors vote. The federal proxy voting rules place primary responsibility for facilitating retail voting in the hands of custodial brokers who have limited incentives to develop workable procedures, and current regulatory restrictions impede market-based innovation that incorporate technological innovations.
One of the most promising such innovations is standing voting instructions …