Steve Seelig and Puneet Arora are regulatory advisors at Willis Towers Watson. This post is based on a Willis Towers Watson memorandum by Mr. Seelig and Mr. Arora.
Recently, the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs held a hearing on various legislative proposals aimed at improving corporate governance, including the Corporate Governance Reform and Transparency Act, H.R. 4015, that would regulate the activities of proxy advisory firms like Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) and Glass Lewis.
This hearing is the latest step in the legislative process, following the House of Representative voting 238-182 on December 20, 2017 to send H.R. 4015 to the Senate for consideration. It is not yet clear that the Senate will move the legislation from the Committee to the full Senate, or whether the Committee will make significant amendments requiring a second vote from the House to endorse those changes, or some compromise to harmonize those differences. Moreover, any movement on H.R. 4015 in the near term seems unlikely, given the Senate’s focus on confirming President Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court and on the mid-term elections.
