Post by imSINGLEruRICH on Nov 28, 2007 14:39:14 GMT -5
From PB790
gurumaster
Diamond Appraiser
Annette Nazareth stirrin the Pot again! « Thread Started on Today at 3:12am »
Looks like Annette Nazareth is gonna dig her grave I am sure she will do all she can to screw it for the little guys!
Maybe Cox needs to boot her where the sun does not shine!
Someone really needs to silence her!
biz.yahoo.com/ap/071128/sec_investor_access.html
AP
SEC Stirs Opposition on Shareholder Move
Wednesday November 28, 1:04 am ET
By Marcy Gordon, AP Business Writer
SEC Ready to Adopt Proposal Allowing Companies to Bar Shareholders From Access to Ballots
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal securities regulators appear primed to allow companies to bar shareholders from access to ballots for board elections, a move that major pension funds and governance advocates say could make corporations less responsive to investors' interests.
The shareholder rights issue is one of the most controversial to come before the Securities and Exchange Commission in recent years, generating more than 34,000 comment letters to the agency. The vacancy of a Democratic seat on the five-member panel has added to the friction. Democrat Roel Campos, who left in September, likely would have voted to adopt a proposal making it easier and cheaper for dissident shareholders to elect candidates they back to a company's board.
That proposal would allow shareholders who together own at least 5 percent of a company's stock to propose changes to the company's bylaws on elections for directors.
Proposed bylaw changes could then be voted on by all shareholders, giving stock holders the right to get their board candidates on ballots that have been paid for and distributed by companies.
As things stand now, with lone Democrat Annette Nazareth sitting on the commission, it was expected to adopt at a public meeting Wednesday a competing proposal that is closer to the status quo, allowing companies to keep off their proxies shareholder proposals related to the election of board members.
Last week, a dozen big pension funds and a government employees' union made last-ditch efforts to persuade SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, a Republican, not to proceed with the vote. Cox has said he wants new shareholder-rights rules in place before the corporate proxy season begins next spring.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME, threatened to sue the SEC if the less expansive rule is adopted. The 12 pension funds -- including the nation's largest, the California Public Employees' Retirement System -- together own more than $300 billion worth of stock in U.S. companies. Their officials wouldn't comment on possible litigation but said the funds had sent "urgent letters" to Cox, pressing him to delay the vote until all five seats on the SEC are filled.
Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who heads the Senate Banking Committee, and other Democratic lawmakers have urged the SEC not to make new rules until Democratic vacancies are filled with new commissioners to be named by President Bush and approved by the Senate. In addition to Campos' departure, Nazareth plans to leave in the coming months.
"We think the SEC should go back to the drawing board," Amy Borrus, deputy director of the Council of Institutional Investors, a group representing public pension funds, said recently. "Electing directors is the main means shareholders have to ensure that a company is managed in their interest."
Under the current system, dissident investors seeking to get new directors on a company's board or to change its bylaws must wage costly proxy fights and appeal to company shareholders themselves.
In testimony to Congress earlier this month, Cox said the SEC must dispel legal uncertainty surrounding the issue. It was AFSCME, the government workers' union, that won a ruling in September in a federal appeals court, challenging the SEC's decision to allow insurance giant American International Group Inc. to bar the union's proxy-access proposal.
Senate Democrats recommended recently that Bush nominate Luis Aguilar, the former general counsel of investment management firm Invesco PLC, and Elisse Walter, who was a securities industry regulator, to fill the two Democratic slots on the SEC.
Securities and Exchange Commission: www.sec.gov
gurumaster
Diamond Appraiser
Annette Nazareth stirrin the Pot again! « Thread Started on Today at 3:12am »
Looks like Annette Nazareth is gonna dig her grave I am sure she will do all she can to screw it for the little guys!
Maybe Cox needs to boot her where the sun does not shine!
Someone really needs to silence her!
biz.yahoo.com/ap/071128/sec_investor_access.html
AP
SEC Stirs Opposition on Shareholder Move
Wednesday November 28, 1:04 am ET
By Marcy Gordon, AP Business Writer
SEC Ready to Adopt Proposal Allowing Companies to Bar Shareholders From Access to Ballots
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal securities regulators appear primed to allow companies to bar shareholders from access to ballots for board elections, a move that major pension funds and governance advocates say could make corporations less responsive to investors' interests.
The shareholder rights issue is one of the most controversial to come before the Securities and Exchange Commission in recent years, generating more than 34,000 comment letters to the agency. The vacancy of a Democratic seat on the five-member panel has added to the friction. Democrat Roel Campos, who left in September, likely would have voted to adopt a proposal making it easier and cheaper for dissident shareholders to elect candidates they back to a company's board.
That proposal would allow shareholders who together own at least 5 percent of a company's stock to propose changes to the company's bylaws on elections for directors.
Proposed bylaw changes could then be voted on by all shareholders, giving stock holders the right to get their board candidates on ballots that have been paid for and distributed by companies.
As things stand now, with lone Democrat Annette Nazareth sitting on the commission, it was expected to adopt at a public meeting Wednesday a competing proposal that is closer to the status quo, allowing companies to keep off their proxies shareholder proposals related to the election of board members.
Last week, a dozen big pension funds and a government employees' union made last-ditch efforts to persuade SEC Chairman Christopher Cox, a Republican, not to proceed with the vote. Cox has said he wants new shareholder-rights rules in place before the corporate proxy season begins next spring.
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or AFSCME, threatened to sue the SEC if the less expansive rule is adopted. The 12 pension funds -- including the nation's largest, the California Public Employees' Retirement System -- together own more than $300 billion worth of stock in U.S. companies. Their officials wouldn't comment on possible litigation but said the funds had sent "urgent letters" to Cox, pressing him to delay the vote until all five seats on the SEC are filled.
Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who heads the Senate Banking Committee, and other Democratic lawmakers have urged the SEC not to make new rules until Democratic vacancies are filled with new commissioners to be named by President Bush and approved by the Senate. In addition to Campos' departure, Nazareth plans to leave in the coming months.
"We think the SEC should go back to the drawing board," Amy Borrus, deputy director of the Council of Institutional Investors, a group representing public pension funds, said recently. "Electing directors is the main means shareholders have to ensure that a company is managed in their interest."
Under the current system, dissident investors seeking to get new directors on a company's board or to change its bylaws must wage costly proxy fights and appeal to company shareholders themselves.
In testimony to Congress earlier this month, Cox said the SEC must dispel legal uncertainty surrounding the issue. It was AFSCME, the government workers' union, that won a ruling in September in a federal appeals court, challenging the SEC's decision to allow insurance giant American International Group Inc. to bar the union's proxy-access proposal.
Senate Democrats recommended recently that Bush nominate Luis Aguilar, the former general counsel of investment management firm Invesco PLC, and Elisse Walter, who was a securities industry regulator, to fill the two Democratic slots on the SEC.
Securities and Exchange Commission: www.sec.gov