TheCorporateCounsel.net

Here is something that Meredith blogged earlier this week on our Proxy Season Blog for members:

Bloomberg reports that 22 state AGs announced an inquiry late last week in the form of a joint letter to Nasdaq alleging that the exchange’s board diversity rule may conflict with both State and federal anti-discrimination laws. The letter asks the stock exchange to provide “a summary and specific documentation of Nasdaq’s rules and policies requiring its listed companies to follow federal and State anti-discrimination laws and any legal analysis explaining how those laws comport with Nasdaq’s purportedly aspirational quotas.”

It requests that Nasdaq respond by October 23. In a statement to the WSJ, Nasdaq says it “designed the framework to preserve each company’s decision-making authority over its board composition.”

The signatories to the letter are some of the “usual suspects” in terms of challengers to DEI-related policies. In addition to joining amicus briefs in the pending litigation in the Fifth Circuit challenging Nasdaq’s board diversity rule, they have also challenged the proxy advisors’ DEI proxy voting policies.

– Liz Dunshee