Law Commons^™

Shareholder Proposal Settlements And The Private Ordering Of Public Elections, Sarah C. Haan

Sarah Haan

Reform of campaign finance disclosure has stalled in Congress and at various federal agencies, but it is steadily unfolding in a firm-by-firm program of private ordering. Today, much of what is publicly known about how individual public companies spend money to influence federal, state, and local elections—and particularly what is known about corporate “dark money”—comes from disclosures that conform to privately negotiated contracts.

The primary mechanism for this new transparency is the settlement of the shareholder proposal, in which a shareholder trades its rights under SEC Rule 14a-8—and potentially the rights of other shareholders—for a privately negotiated social policy commitment …