The SEC's recently proposed Amendments to Exemptions from the Proxy Rules for Proxy Voting Advice is an efficient and necessary response to the “collective action” problem that is imbedded in the shareholder voting of public companies and the deficiencies that this problem creates in the...

Investment advisers to mutual funds, exchange-traded funds, and separately managed accounts are typically delegated the authority to vote their clients' securities. When this delegation occurs, these investment advisers have a fiduciary duty to vote their proxies, typically the voting rights...

The Securities and Exchange Commission's (“SEC” or “Commission”) recent staff roundtable on the proxy process, and its resulting guidance, interpretation and proposed rules on limiting the use of shareholder proposals, regulating proxy advisors and their creation of shareholder voting...

The shareholder empowerment movement (movement) has renewed its effort to eliminate, restrict or at the very least discourage the use of dual class share structures in initial public offerings (IPOs). This renewed effort was triggered by the recent Snap Inc. IPO that utilized non-voting stock....

The underlying theme of this Article is that the Big Three investment advisers to index funds (BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street) need to be understood as agents of those who invest in the mutual funds and exchange traded funds they manage. They are not institutional investors, the role...