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March 10, 2004
Disney Vote and California Bill May Affect SEC Shareowner Director Nomination Rule
by William Baue
The significant withhold vote at Disney and a bill being considered by the California State
Legislature may have a bearing on the SEC's proposed rule on shareowner director nominations.
SocialFunds.com --
Today, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is hosting a roundtable on its proposed rule to provide shareowners
access to the proxy for nominating candidates to company boards of directors. The roundtable
complements an extension to March 31, 2004 for the period that the SEC is accepting public comments on the
proposal. The rule would require companies to include on their proxy ballot director candidates
nominated by shareowners, subject to certain thresholds and triggering events.
 "I suspect the SEC scheduled its roundtable thinking
they might water down their already very weak nominating proposal," said James McRitchie, editor of
corporate governance watchdog website CorpGov.net. Mr. McRitchie co-filed with the Committee of Concerned Shareholders the August
2002 rulemaking
petition with the SEC that set this rule change in motion.
While many observers
agree that the rule does not go far enough, Raul Campos, one of five SEC commissioners, defended
the rule against those who say it goes too far by characterizing it as "a modest, modest
proposal."
Roundtable panelist Martin Lipton of the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz characterized the proposal
as a "serious mistake" in a November 2003 Business Lawyer article that is
posted on a SEC webpage spotlighting the issue.
While this diversity of opinion is to be expected, developments beyond the control of the SEC
and panelists may affect the rulemaking as much as the views expressed at the roundtable and in
comment letters.
"The Disney vote adds pressure to go ahead" with the new rule, Mr.
McRitchie told SocialFunds.com. "Additional pressure will be brought to bear with measures such as
California's AB 2752."
Earlier this month, 43 percent of Disney (ticker: DIS) shareowners
withheld their votes to re-elect CEO Michael Eisner to the board. Ironically, the board responded
by replacing Mr. Eisner's board chair position with George Mitchell, a former US senator from
Maine, despite the fact that 24 percent of shareowners censured him by withholding their support.
Current SEC regulations and state laws do not allow investors to actually vote against
director nominees, who are exclusively nominated by management, only to withhold their vote. One
of the triggers for shareowner access to the proxy nomination in the proposed rule is surpassing a
35 percent threshold of withhold votes.
Until the Disney vote, the 35 percent withhold
threshold had not actually been surpassed. According to panelist James Heard of Institutional
Shareholder Services (ISS), a proxy voting
advisory firm, withhold votes for directors surpassed 30 percent last year at nine companies,
including AOL-Time Warner (AOL), Boise Cascade (BCC), and Ryder (R). The Disney
vote illustrates both the widespread shareowner dissatisfaction with board-nominated directors and
also how difficult it is to surpass the proposed threshold.
Panelist Franklin Raines,
chair and CEO of Fannie Mae (FNM), and co-chair of the Business Roundtable, a CEO
association, called the 35 percent threshold too low, as democratic rule calls for majority votes.
Some may feel, however, that requiring a plurality for nomination is contrary to the generally
accepted definition of a democracy. Among other panelists, Ann Yerger of the Council of
Institutional Investors (CII), an organization of large public,
labor funds, and corporate pension funds, pointed out that the threshold is only a preliminary
hurdle and that the election itself requires a majority vote. She additionally pointed out that,
after adjusting for broker-directed votes, 55 percent of shareowners withheld support for Mr.
Eisner.
State law may trump SEC regulation of director nominations. California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley recently sponsored
state bill AB
2752, the Corporate Election Fairness Act of 2004, introduced by California Assembly member Judy
Chu.
"AB 1752 wouldn't require triggers, nor would it impose a one year delay," said Mr.
McRitchie. The triggering event clause of the proposed SEC rule effectively creates at least a
one-year lag between the triggering event of one proxy season and shareowner access to the proxy
the next proxy season. The proposed California bill also would allow shareowners or groups of
shareowners that hold more than two percent of company stock for more than two years to nominate
director candidates, much lower than the SEC's five percent ownership threshold.
"Shareowners frustrated with Mr. Eisner should back Ms. Chu's measure," Mr. McRitchie concluded
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