Back in June, Texas passed a law – known as “Senate Bill 2337” – that mandates certain disclosures when proxy advisors recommend casting a vote for “non-financial reasons” or provide conflicting advice to multiple clients....more
The most common problem with board meeting agendas is they get too routine. You pull up the agenda from last year for that particular meeting and it gets a perfunctory look and it’s sent out. Most sets of governance...more
Recently, I blogged about how ISS is soliciting input on its annual policy benchmark survey. Glass Lewis has also released its annual policy benchmark survey, with responses due by September 15th....more
8/15/2025
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Board of Directors ,
Capital Markets ,
Corporate Governance ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Environmental Social & Governance (ESG) ,
Glass Lewis ,
Proxy Voting ,
Schedule 13G ,
Shareholder Meetings ,
Shareholders
During the proxy season, everyone’s flat out soliciting votes, so investors are jammed up, and they’ll be available for engagement only if there’s something very specific to your annual meeting that’s important enough to them...more
Recently, the NYSE and JPMorgan released this lengthy “Board Structure and Composition” white paper and Cooley was proud to contribute Chapter 20 “Independent Board Chair – Trends and Issues” chapter (pp. 157–163). Here are...more
AI note-taking is today’s topic du jour. The first thing to know about this topic is that you need to experience it for yourself to see why it’s so attractive. (I’ll run a blog soon summarizing how AI note-taking works in...more
Personally, I’m sick of hearing about the Coldplay jumbotron scandal. But it does illustrate that it’s inevitable in a company’s life that there will be unexpected crises, and they are not fun if you’re someone who has to...more
Last week, ISS launched its latest annual ‘Global Benchmark Policy Survey’ – responses are due by August 22nd. Here are the primary questions (I didn’t include the multiple-choice answers)...more
7/29/2025
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Board of Directors ,
Corporate Governance ,
Directors ,
Diversity ,
Executive Compensation ,
Institutional Investors ,
Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) ,
Risk Management ,
Shareholder Proposals ,
Shareholders
Last week, COSO withdrew its public exposure draft for a corporate governance framework just a month after it was proposed. This was a set of FAQs about it that was posted when the proposal first was made....more
Recently, I blogged about the 20 Corp Fin Directors we’ve had at the SEC (we haven’t heard yet who will be the new Corp Fin Director) – and it got me thinking about Manny Cohen, whom many of us don’t know much about since he...more
The survey results from this “What Directors Think” publication from Corporate Board Member, Diligent Institute and FTI Consulting are based on the thoughts of more than 200 US public company directors. Here are a dozen...more
Recently, Nevada passed new legislation (AB 239) to amend the Nevada Revised Statutes to provide a number of statutory liability protections, including de-emphasizing the use of Delaware case law in interpreting Nevada law....more
Recently, BlackRock released its “2024 Investment Stewardship Annual Report” – here’s a 25-page executive summary. Here are six lessons learned – although note this is all about last year; not the latest proxy season...more
Recently, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 2337 (SB 2337) in an effort to regulate proxy advisors – including ISS and Glass Lewis – when they provide proxy voting recommendations for those companies that are either...more
6/23/2025
/ Corporate Governance ,
Glass Lewis ,
Investors ,
New Legislation ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Proxy Advisors ,
Publicly-Traded Companies ,
Regulatory Reform ,
Shareholder Proposals ,
Shareholders ,
Texas
If you’re attending the ‘Society of Corporate Governance’ Conference in Colorado in a few weeks, look for one of our Cooley people – including me – so that you can procure one of our nifty “proxy season wristbands.” You can...more
Last week, the SEC issued a notice of formal withdrawal for 14 proposed rulemakings that were issued a few years ago – these rules were never adopted. The only Corp Fin rulemaking in this group was this proposal from 2022...more
As I blogged last month, the SEC is holding a half-day roundtable on Thursday, June 26th to consider whether the SEC’s executive pay disclosure requirements need updating. At the time, the public was invited to submit...more
Last week, the SEC issued this 71-page concept release to rethink the definition of “foreign private issuer” and determine which companies should get the benefits of reporting under the FPI reporting framework. Here’s the...more
Recently, the PCAOB released its annual recap of its conversations with audit committee chairs. This past year, the PCAOB staff interviewed 272 audit committee chairs to come up with its findings, 78% of whom chaired a...more
As noted in this Reuters article, a recent PwC and The Conference Board survey found that...more
As we await word as to who the next Corp Fin Director is, I thought it might be useful to investigate where these folks typically hail from. Below is an analysis of this list of Corp Fin Directors that I created long ago on...more
We’ve blogged multiple times about how you should prepare to transition to the SEC’s new “EDGAR Next” platform (here’s our latest post). We are now in that transition period where some companies are voluntarily enrolling in...more
On Friday, the SEC announced that it would host a roundtable on executive compensation disclosure requirements on June 26th with investor and public company representatives (and others) as part of the process “to ensure that...more
As we’ve blogged about recently, Texas has taken a number of steps to bolster its reputation as a business-friendly state. The latest is a new law aimed at making it harder for shareholder proponents to get a proposal (other...more
The House Financial Services Committee voted to include a provision in the 2025 budget reconciliation bill that would abolish the PCAOB. The proposal would reassign PCAOB functions to the SEC....more
5/9/2025
/ Audits ,
Corporate Governance ,
Financial Regulatory Reform ,
Financial Reporting ,
Mergers ,
PCAOB ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Publicly-Traded Companies ,
Regulatory Agencies ,
Regulatory Oversight ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)