{"id":5477,"date":"2013-05-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-30T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/institutionalinvestorsecuritiesblog.blawgcloud.com\/2013\/05\/former_sec_commissioner_wants"},"modified":"2022-03-10T09:14:53","modified_gmt":"2022-03-10T15:14:53","slug":"former-sec-commissioner-wants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/former-sec-commissioner-wants\/","title":{"rendered":"Former SEC Commissioner Wants SEC Shareholder Proposal Process Revamped"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Ex-Securities and Exchange Commissioner Paul Atkins wants the agency to rework its shareholder proposal rule, including the process that the staff employs to determine when issuers can leave the proposals out of their proxy materials. Atkins pointed to the recent increase in shareholder proposals that are pressing companies to reveal their political spending even though the majority of shareholders oppose such resolutions. He spoke against special interest groups using these proposals to push their agendas.<\/p>\n<p>Atkins made his comments during an interview with BNA. Referring to the no-action process that lets SEC staff figure out the major issues that end up on issuers\u2019 proxies for shareholders to vote on, he said that this action was very subjective and doesn\u2019t have much transparency, actual due process, or accountability.<\/p>\n<p>Under the SEC\u2019s 1934 Securities Exchange Act Rule 14a-8, its shareholder proposal rule, the procedures that eligible investors can have their proposals included in the proxy materials of a company are laid out. The rule also lets issuers leave out proposals in certain, limited situations. (Still, issuers have to tell the SEC Division of Corporation of Finance why the proposal is being left out) and the staff can then grant no-action relief.<\/p>\n<div class=\"read_more_link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/former-sec-commissioner-wants\/\"  title=\"Continue Reading Former SEC Commissioner Wants SEC Shareholder Proposal Process Revamped\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ex-Securities and Exchange Commissioner Paul Atkins wants the agency to rework its shareholder proposal rule, including the process that the staff employs to determine when issuers can leave the proposals out of their proxy materials. Atkins pointed to the recent increase in shareholder proposals that are pressing companies to reveal their political spending even though [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3761],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-securities-and-exchange-commis"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Former SEC Commissioner Wants SEC Shareholder Proposal Process Revamped &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog &#8212; May 30, 2013<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ex-Securities and Exchange Commissioner Paul Atkins wants the agency to rework its shareholder proposal rule, including the process that the staff employs &#8212; May 30, 2013\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.investorlawyers.com\/blog\/former-sec-commissioner-wants\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Former SEC Commissioner Wants SEC Shareholder Proposal Process Revamped &#8212; Investor Lawyers Blog &#8212; May 30, 2013\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Ex-Securities and Exchange Commissioner Paul Atkins wants the agency to rework its shareholder proposal rule, including the process that the staff employs &#8212; May 30, 2013\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Shepherd Smith Edwards &amp; Kantas, LLP\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Former SEC Commissioner Wants SEC Shareholder Proposal Process Revamped &#8212; 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