TheCorporateCounsel.net

If you are attending tomorrow’s “3rd Annual Executive Compensation Conference” by webcast, remember that the panel times are Pacific/West Coast time, which means Las Vegas is 3 hours behind the Eastern seaboard (but the four “bonus” panels are already posted and can be listened to at any time).

Course materials for each panel are posted directly beneath the links available for that panel. As always, each panel has a set of “talking points” posted, which are very helpful for taking notes. I have combined them in a PDF, if you want to print off a complilation of the talking points created for this year’s Conference. And there are many other materials listed below each panel’s links.

To gain access to the Conference, simply go to the home page of CompensationStandards.com and follow the prominent link that will be at the top of the page and input your ID/password (which should be the same ID/pw for CompensationStandards.com if you are a member that registered for the Conference). Then, you have three choices: (1) watch the panels consecutively live; (2) watch a specific panel live; or (3) watch a panel by archive (it will take 5-6 hours for a panel to be archived after it is over).

One technology item to note: You need approximately 600k of continuous incoming bandwidth in order to view a panel through a 500k link. If that high level of bandwidth is not available for you, your player will either not open or continuously buffer (i.e., freeze). If you experience this type of problem, it is highly recommended that you switch to a 56/100k link to watch the video. Here are other troubleshooting tips if you need them. If you’re coming to Las Vegas, see ya there!

CLE Credit: We also have posted this list of states with the status/number of hours available for CLE credit, divided into two categories: those attending online and those attending in DC. If you are in a state for which the Conference is accredited for online CLE – please register for CLE for webcast attendance and follow the instructions there (then, approximately 3-4 weeks after the Conference, we will e-mail you a Certificate of Attendance).

No Secrets: How Funds Vote Your Shares

Last week’s WSJ included this article about how mutual funds vote their shares; here is an excerpt:

“A burgeoning number of researchers are focused on the data, with two general conclusions so far: The biggest mutual-fund companies overwhelmingly do vote with management, more so than at least one leading independent adviser recommends. But they don’t appear to favor companies where they run 401(k) retirement-savings or other investment programs. And on select issues — those seen as directly affecting stock returns, such as votes over anti-takeover provisions — fund companies have proved willing to go to battle.

Mutual funds of the nation’s biggest and best-known money-management companies voted in support of management 92% of the time during the 12 months ended June 30, 2005, according to a study by Corporate Library, a governance-research firm in Portland, Maine. When it came to resolutions sponsored by shareholders, which managements generally oppose, the funds voted in favor less than one-third of the time, or 30%. (These statistics don’t include so-called socially responsible funds, which often vote against managements.)

In contrast, during the same period Glass Lewis & Co., one of several prominent firms that provide so-called proxy-vote recommendations to institutional investors like foundations and pension plans as well as mutual-fund companies, recommended that its clients vote for 80% of management-proposed resolutions and more than half — 53% — of shareholder resolutions.”