The SEC lost a big one today. In Business Roundtable v. SEC, the D.C. Circuit invalidated the Commission's proxy access rule promulgated under section 971 of the Dodd-Frank Act. If you are interested in assessments of the court's reasoning and the outcome generally, I would refer you here, here, here, and here for varying perspectives on the decision. While the original adoption of the proxy access rule enjoyed broad academic support, few voices are today critical of the D.C. Circuit opinion. I will leave the legal analysis to administrative law experts (but admit to a high level of skepticism that the opinion reflects sound legal formalism rather than ideological favor of the corporatocracy).Macroeconomically, the case will prove catastrophic. When the next financial meltdown takes hold and the ability of CEOs to opportunistically abuse the public corporation for their great profit at the expense of both the corporation and society generally takes center stage yet again we will regret the long delay of shareholder power to nominate and elect directors of their own corporation. This opinion will not age well.
I agree with this post. I believe that unless there is a provision to allow shareholders to have a say in the election of the CEO's then there will be a cyclical change of events and history will continue to repeat itself. I feel that this provision will never occur for CEO's and shareholders to be able to elect the CEO's and board members, for the simple reasons that the board members are CEO's of different companies themselves. They want to keep the chain of command going. That is why I believe proxy voting is very difficult, because the board and or the CEOs do not want outside influences to burst their homogenous bubble. Although you call for the provision that would allow the shareholders more say with regards to who to put on the board and the election of the CEO. The corporate bubble is so dense that nothing can break through and so the chain of events that occurred between 2007 and 2009 will keep repeating itself because as we know if we do not learn from history, history will just keep repeating itself because the board members scratch the backs of the CEOs and the CEOs scratches the back of the board members and no outside influences by proxy voting are encouraged to enter into the mix.
ReplyDeleteIn summation the reason proxy voting is so difficult and takes a lot of financial wear with all is because proxy voting is highly discouraged because the board members and the CEOs want to keep themselves in the corporate bubbles until it burst.
I agree with this post. I believe that unless there is a provision to allow shareholders to have a say in the election of the CEO's then there will be a cyclical change of events and history will continue to repeat itself. I feel that this provision will never occur for CEO's and shareholders to be able to elect the CEO's and board members, for the simple reasons that the board members are CEO's of different companies themselves. They want to keep the chain of command going. That is why I believe proxy voting is very difficult, because the board and or the CEOs do not want outside influences to burst their homogenous bubble.
ReplyDeleteAlthough you call for the provision that would allow the shareholders more say with regards to who to put on the board and the election of the CEO. The corporate bubble is so dense that nothing can break through and so the chain of events that occurred between 2007 and 2009 will keep repeating itself because as we know if we do not learn from history, history will just keep repeating itself because the board members scratch the backs of the CEOs and the CEOs scratches the back of the board members and no outside influences by proxy voting are encouraged to enter into the mix.
In summation the reason proxy voting is so difficult and takes a lot of financial wear with all is because proxy voting is highly discouraged because the board members and the CEOs want to keep themselves in the corporate bubbles until it burst.
- Bishop Abo-Saif
The forces are combining against shareholders and investors. Citizens United, the Dodd-Frank rollback, the Obama administrations coziness with the Wall Street banking industry, all point to a very unfortunate ending place.
ReplyDelete