Mary E. Alcock

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On November 3, 2021, the Division of Corporation Finance of the SEC (the “Staff”) issued Staff Legal Bulletin (“SLB”) No. 14L, which rescinds SLBs Nos. 14I, 14J and 14K, all of which provided guidance with respect to no-action letter requests that sought relief from the Staff to exclude shareholder proposals on the basis of Rule 14a-8(i)(7) and Rule 14a-8(i)(5).  SLB No. 14L also provides guidance on (i) certain technical exclusions, (ii) the use of graphics and images in proposals and (iii) the use of email between proponents and companies.
Continue Reading SEC Provides New Guidance on Shareholder Proposals – Likely To Limit Companies’ Ability To Exclude Environmental and Social Proposals

On October 14, 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor (the “DOL”) issued a proposed rule (the “Proposed Rule”) clarifying whether investments made by fiduciaries of plans subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (“ERISA”) may take into account environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) concerns in selecting investments and investment courses of action, as well as fiduciary duties in exercising shareholder rights.[1]  The Proposed Rule aligns more closely with recent trends toward ESG-oriented investing and seeks to reduce any chilling effects introduced by the Trump administration’s regulatory and non-regulatory guidance on fiduciary duty-compliant ESG investing.
Continue Reading New DOL Proposal on ESG Investing and Fiduciary Exercise of Shareholder Rights

On Wednesday, March 10, after engaging in conversations with stakeholders, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration issued an enforcement policy statement in which it declined to enforce two DOL rules put in place by the Trump administration in 2020.

The first of these rules placed limitations on the ability of plans subject to ERISA to invest in environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) funds. In particular, it provided that a fiduciary’s duty of loyalty and prudence under ERISA would only be satisfied if investments were selected solely on the basis of pecuniary factors (defined as factors that have a material effect on the risk and return of an investment), and that ESG factors could only be considered to the extent they created economic risks or opportunities that qualified investment professionals would treat as material economic considerations under generally accepted investment theories. The ESG rule, which many regarded as making ERISA plan investments in ESG-oriented funds prohibitively difficult, received overwhelmingly negative comments from both financial institutions and the public at large. This latest development is not surprising, as the Biden administration had previously signaled that it would be reexamining this rule.
Continue Reading DOL Declines to Enforce Trump Administration Rules on ERISA Plan Investments, Proxy Voting

Over the past few years, many boards have expanded their oversight and consideration of human capital management (HCM) to encompass issues beyond executive hiring and compensation. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, technology and the culture change brought by a new generation of workers had already commenced an irreversible shift in paradigm that established HCM as a board-level issue with vital strategic and risk oversight implications.
Continue Reading Fulfilling the Board’s Expanded Oversight Role in Human Capital Management

Stakeholder attention to environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues continued to grow throughout 2020 driven by the COVID-19 pandemic (health and safety), the Black Lives Matter movement (diversity and inclusion) and worldwide wildfires (climate change), to name a few. Prodded by investors and other stakeholders, companies have increasingly realized the importance to their businesses of managing human capital and monitoring human rights, whether in respect of their own workforces or their supply and customer chains. Further, disclosure and engagement around companies’ human capital management (HCM) practices have become more important and even the Securities and Exchange Commission, which had in the past largely avoided specific ESG disclosure mandates, has weighed in and now requires disclosure regarding human capital resources in annual reports on Form 10-K.
Continue Reading ESG Considerations for Incentive Compensation Programs

At the end of last year, Institutional Shareholder Services (“ISS”) released a handful of updated FAQs on equity compensation plans and compensation policies as well as a slightly updated pay-for-performance mechanics statement; there were no substantive changes to the peer group FAQs.[1] In addition to providing the 2021 Burn Rate Benchmarks for ISS equity plan evaluation (which are effective for shareholder meetings on or after February 1, 2021), the updates address questions regarding the inclusion of a terminated equity plan’s existing share reserves in ISS’ Shareholder Value Transfer (“SVT”) analysis for new equity plan approval proposals, threshold passing scores for the Equity Plan Scorecard (“EPSC”) framework, quantitative pay-for-performance screens and how ISS will evaluate COVID-related pay decisions.
Continue Reading ISS Issues 2021 Updates to Certain Compensation Related FAQs and Policies

In 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) solicited comment on ways to modernize Securities Act Rule 701 (“Rule 701”), the registration statement on Form S-8 (“Form S-8”), and the relationship between the two regulations. Following up on this effort, the SEC recently published several amendments to Rule 701 and Form S-8 to simplify…

On September 23, the SEC voted 3-2 to amend certain of the procedural requirements for the inclusion of shareholder proposals in a company’s proxy statement under Exchange Act Rule 14a-8. The amendments were adopted substantially as proposed in November 2019, except for the so-called “momentum” provision, which would have permitted companies to exclude shareholder proposals…

On August 26, the SEC revised several disclosure requirements applicable to reporting companies. The amendments embrace a “principles-based” approach in the hope that it will elicit more focused and useful disclosures.  They will also require issuers to focus on human capital disclosures and on the organization of risk factor disclosures, and some will have to…