From Distance Meetings to Diversity Reports: 2020 Updates for NY State Businesses
1. Types of Business Entities - Italian law provides multiple forms of organizational structures to do business in Italy. They differ from one another due to the extent of liability undertaken by its members. In...more
For those planning for a virtual-only annual shareholders meeting, here are a non-exhaustive list of issues to consider (these also apply to hybrid meetings, which also have other issues to ponder given the in-person...more
On February 11, 2025, Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) announced that it is suspending the consideration of diversity factors when making voting recommendations for directors at U.S. public companies. ISS’s press...more
In yesterday's post, I discussed Tuli v. Specialty Surgical Center of Thousand Oaks, LLC, 2024 WL 4499271 (Oct. 16, 2024) and whether alleged personal animosity vitiated application of the business judgment rule to the...more
Despite being home to the Silicon Valley, California has not embraced with abandon virtual-only meetings of shareholders. Section 600(e) of the Corporations Code currently does not permit virtual only meetings unless one of...more
At a Glance - This guide outlines some of the basics about preparing for and conducting an annual stockholder meeting of a Delaware corporation....more
TYPES OF BUSINESS ENTITIES - In the Netherlands, there is a distinction between entities which qualify as legal entities (‘rechtspersonen’) and partnerships (‘personenvennootschappen’) which do not. Legal entities are...more
Glass, Lewis & Co (Glass Lewis) and Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) have each released updates to their Canadian proxy voting guidelines for the 2024 proxy season. The Glass Lewis updates apply to shareholder...more
Historically, a meeting necessarily meant a physical encounter. Indeed, the word "meet" can be traced to the Anglo Saxon word metan which means to encounter or meet. So it was that shareholder meetings involved the presence...more
Under the California General Corporation Law, a shareholder whose shares are pledged is entitled to vote those shares until the shares have been transferred into the name of the pledgee. Cal. Corp. Code § 702(c). There are...more
South Carolina-chartered corporations may now hold virtual meetings of shareholders whereby shareholders and proxy holders not physically present at the annual or special meeting location may participate by means of remote...more
Increasingly, many small-cap and microcap public companies are failing to secure stockholder approval of critical proposals, particularly for reverse stock splits and authorized share increases. With heavy concentration of...more
1. Types of Business Entities - 1.1 Premises - The Italian law provides multiple forms of organizational structures in order to do business in Italy, which differ from one another due to the extent of the liability...more
Shareholder engagement is an imperative for every public company. And with the recent adoption of universal proxy cards, 2023 promises to inject fresh uncertainty into how companies think about and approach that engagement....more
Currently, the California Corporations Code prohibits a California corporation from conducting a meeting of shareholders solely by electronic transmission by and to the corporation, electronic video screen communication,...more
As discussed in our November 17, 2021 post, management of public companies are required to use universal proxy cards for shareholder meetings involving most election contests held after August 31, 2022. This means that both...more
Last year, the California legislature enacted AB 663 (Chen) in order to provide California corporations with greater flexibility to hold virtual-only meetings of shareholders. Among other things, AB 663 amended Corporations...more
I. Introduction - As a common law jurisdiction, Ireland’s legal system is similar to that of the US and the UK and businesses can be carried on in Ireland in several different ways, including as sole traders, partnerships,...more
In many closely held corporations, the directors may work side by side nearly every day. If they all meet and discuss some action, does that count as a meeting of the board of directors? ...more
The two dominant proxy advisory firms — Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis (GL) — have issued their policy updates for the 2022 proxy season. These updates reflect the continuing trend of institutional...more