The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu The leading online blog in the fields of corporate governance and financial regulation. Thu, 13 Aug 2026 14:05:31 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.5.10 https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/cropped-photography-4-e1706898544564-1-32x32.png Governance Proposals Dominate the 2026 Proxy Season – The Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu 32 32 Governance Proposals Dominate the 2026 Proxy Season https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2026/07/21/governance-proposals-dominate-the-2026-proxy-season/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=governance-proposals-dominate-the-2026-proxy-season https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/2026/07/21/governance-proposals-dominate-the-2026-proxy-season/#respond Tue, 21 Jul 2026 11:32:46 +0000 https://corpgov.law.harvard.edu/?p=182710?d=20260721095310EDT Posted by Subodh Mishra, ISS STOXX, on Tuesday, July 21, 2026
Editor's Note:

Subodh Mishra is the Global Head of Communications at ISS STOXX. This post is based on an ISS-Corporate memorandum by Henry Mbom, Vice President, Compensation and Governance Advisory; and Toby Huang, Senior Associate, Data Analytics, at ISS-Corporate.

As the 2026 U.S. proxy season draws to a close, both the volume of shareholder proposals brought to a vote and the level of investor support they received show a dramatic change from previous years in the shareholder proposal landscape.

Early in 2025, the SEC issued Staff Legal Bulletin No. 14M (SLB 14M), revising shareholder proposal framework and providing issuers greater flexibility to obtain no-action relief. This change had a significant impact during the 2025 proxy season, greatly increasing the number of proposals being omitted from the ballot. The shareholder proposal landscape was further upended ahead of the 2026 proxy season, with the SEC’s Division of Corporate Finance retreating from its traditional role as an arbitrator of shareholder proposals, declining to review or express views on most requests for shareholder proposal exclusions.

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