TheCorporateCounsel.net

August 12, 2009

Getting the Vote In: Rising Use of Automated Advocacy Calls

Recently, the mass media has been noticing the rising use of automated advocacy calls that companies sometimes use to help bring in the vote (recall the rising use of these calls for political elections over the past decade). For example, see this Forbes’ article. This negative attention illustrates the tightrope that companies – and their proxy solicitors – will walk next year when broker votes disappear and the need for these calls increases by a factor of five.

To learn more about automated advocacy calls, I caught up with Tom Ball of Morrow & Co. in this DealLawyers.com podcast so he could tell us about the latest trends using these voicemails, including asking him:

– What are these automated advocacy calls? How common are they?
– How are the calls best used?
– How much do they cost?
– Who gets hired to do the “voiceovers” for the calls?

I also posted some samples of these voicemails in case you have never heard one: here is one sample voicemail – and here’s another sample).

Survey Results: Audit Committee Oversight and Subsidiaries

Probably due to the narrowness of the topic, our recent survey on “Audit Committee Oversight and Subsidiaries” didn’t have too many respondents. However, there were some interesting results.

Many companies have adopted stock ownership guidelines requiring executives and directors to own stock in their company based on a multiple of their salaries or board retainers. With the current market downturn and drop in net worth for many people, some companies are changing their stock ownership guidelines. Here is our latest “Quick Survey on Stock Ownership Guidelines” to gauge what folks are doing. Please take a moment to respond to this anonymous survey.

Alternative Fee Arrangements for Deals: Little Less Talk and Lot More Action?

We have posted the transcript from our recent DealLawyers.com webcast: “Alternative Fee Arrangements for Deals: Little Less Talk and Lot More Action?”

– Broc Romanek