Litigation

New Proxy Monitor Finding on Executive Compensation

By James R. Copland

On Wednesday, the Manhattan Institute released a new "finding," looking at executive-compensation shareholder proposals, as part of the Proxy Monitor project. Key findings include:

• Labor unions are playing a big role here. "The two most frequent shareholder sponsors of proposals related to executive compensation have been the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), with twenty-three proposals, and the AFL-CIO, with twelve. Overall, labor unions and their pension funds introduced 70 proposals related to executive compensation to Fortune 100 companies since 2008, constituting over 38 percent of all identified proposals coming to a vote."
• Shareholders are electing to hold annual say-on-pay votes. "Under Dodd-Frank's Section 951, executive-compensation advisory votes are now mandatory for public companies. In 2011, companies with annual meetings scheduled after January 21 must hold a vote to determine the frequency of such votes, which under the statute can be every one to three years. Of the four companies in the Fortune 100 to have voted on the issue thus far--Johnson Controls (JCI), Costco (COST), Emerson Electric (EMR), and Tyson Foods (TSN)--shareholders have supported annual advisory votes on executive compensation at each company save Tyson, which has a dual-share structure giving insiders effective voting control."

I discuss the new finding in a podcast here. Read the whole thing here.

Full post as published by Point of Law on February 25, 2011 (boomark / email).