TheCorporateCounsel.net

Earlier this week, ISS Governance announced its 2024 Benchmark Policy Updates, which will be effective for meetings on or after February 1, 2024. In a miracle of miracles, no updates are contemplated for the US Benchmark Proxy Voting Guidelines. Instead, ISS Governance announced changes to its Canadian and Japan policies and Asia-Pacific regional markets policies. Appendix B to this summary shows there is just one clarification to the U.S. policy that codifies ISS’s case-by-case approach on shareholder proposals to require shareholder ratification of executive severance arrangements or payments. I cannot remember if there was ever another time when ISS did not make any changes to its US benchmark proxy voting guidelines. Honestly, it feels kind of weird.

Of course, this outcome was foreshadowed last month when ISS Governance announced the launch of its open comment period on proposed changes to its benchmark voting policies. Notably, ISS Governance did not solicit comments for any policy changes in the US market.

– Dave Lynn