Designing a Shareholder Access Rule

This paper examines the specific features of the shareholder access rule recently proposed by the Securities and Exchange Commission. I suggest that, even accepting the Commission's generally cautious approach and its desire to limit shareholder access to cases where the need for it is evident, the restrictions included in the rule proposal are excessive and should be relaxed. In particular, I identify several changes in these restrictions that would contribute to attaining the policy goals that the proposed rule seeks to serve