Introduction

It is a generally accepted cornerstone of sound corporate governance that shareholder participation is a key component of a successful annual meeting of shareholders. State laws require companies to hold annual meetings of their shareholders to elect directors and act upon other matters properly brought before the meeting. From a governance perspective, the annual meeting often serves as an opportunity for management to update shareholders on company developments, for shareholders to ask questions of management and directors, to consider shareholder proposals and to review the company’s performance.

In recent years, there has been ongoing dialogue regarding best practices, or safeguards, to ensure that annual meetings are accessible, transparent, efficient and meet the corporate governance needs of shareholders, boards and management.

To that end, a group of interested constituencies, comprised of retail and institutional investors, public company representatives, as well as proxy and legal service providers, has been discussing best practices and safeguards for annual shareholder meetings, online shareholder participation in annual shareholder meetings and rules of engagement for such meetings.

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