TheCorporateCounsel.net

January 29, 2007

Forecast for 2007 Proxy Season and Strategies to Consider

Tune in tomorrow to hear Pat McGurn of ISS provide us with the latest proxy season developments during the webcast: “Forecast for 2007 Proxy Season and Strategies to Consider.”

Executive Pay Dominates Australia’s Proxy Season

Just like the UK, Australia has a relatively new law that allows shareholders to cast an advisory vote on executive pay reports; you might recall, this is the regulatory format that Rep. Barney Frank is seeking. ISS’s “Corporate Governance” Blog notes how that new law is faring, with a number of Australian companies receiving high levels of dissenting votes in its 2nd year under the new law.

SEC Chairman Cox on the Power of Blogs

A few weeks back, a CFO.com article entitled the “The Blogging Regulator” led me to a Reuters’ article entitled “SEC’s Cox Uses Blogs To Gauge Public Sentiment.” According to the Reuters’ article, SEC Chairman Cox told a summit on Monday: “‘Blogs are a great way to infer passion and depth of feeling… They give you an early read on the … response you might expect.” However, Reuters noted, “Cox said he does not rely on blogs to find the way forward on tough issues – as he observed, “Blogs in many cases are so irreverent… They don’t wait for facts.”

It’s funny how statements like this are deemed to be “news”; I think that most people feel the same way about blogs as the Chairman: useful but take with a grain of salt (just like I approach the mainstream media!).