The Shareholder ForumTM

Electronic Participation in Shareholder Meetings

Forum Home Page [see Broadridge note below]

"E-Meetings" Home Page

"E-Meetings" Program Reference

 

 

See also

Instructions for Webcast Participation July 13 Forum Meeting

and

July 8, 2010 Forum Report

Proposed Standards for Communications Relating to Shareholder Meetings

 

For the subsequent report of the meeting, see

 

Open Meeting of the Shareholder Forum

Electronic Participation in Shareholder Meetings

 

Date

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Time

3:30pm to 5:30pm

Location

Four Seasons Hotel, Salon Suite

57 East 57th Street (between Madison and Park Avenues)

New York, New York 10022

Attendance

Registration required* for in-person attendance of up to 30 individuals or for electronic participation, without charge to NYSSA members and participants in the E-Meetings Forum program.

To Be Decided:

Standards for Fair Conduct of Investor Communications

Considering the potential applications of modern technologies to either improve or restrict investor access to decision-making information, this Forum meeting will consider proposed standards for judging the fairness of communications associated with voting at shareholder meetings, assuring a shareholder’s right to

(a)      present questions and views to a company’s managers and to other shareholders,

(b)      observe the presentation of other shareholders’ questions and views, and

(c)      observe the responses of managers to all shareholder questions.

Agenda

3:30PM

Observations from the front line of meeting management

§  Invited expert: Carl T. Hagberg, Hagberg and Associates (inspector of elections)

3:40

Questions from the front line of meeting management

§  Invited expert: Cathy H. Conlon, Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. (investor communications)

3:50

Distinguishing between legal and marketplace requirements

§  Special project report: Frank G. Zarb, Jr., workshop leader

3:55

Communication between directors and shareholders: opportunities and considerations

§  Special project report: David A. Silverman, workshop leader

4:00

Discussion of criteria for satisfying investor information requirements

§  Relevance to voting decisions

§  Timeliness for consideration in decision-making

§  Opportunity for open observation

§  Additional interests and issues to be identified

4:30

Definition of standards for judging fairness

§  Propose as questions to be considered by a shareholder to decide whether a particular company practice satisfies situation-specific requirements

§  Encourage corporate differentiation of adaptations

§  Respect investor rights to views

5:00

Determination of consensus points and ranges of views

***

Additional information, including Forum policies for open participation in this public interest program, can be found on this web site:

www.shareholderforum.com/e-mtg

July 7, 2010

Gary Lutin, Chairman

Program Panel:

Hye-Won Choi, TIAA-CREF

Margaret M. Foran, Prudential Financial, Inc.

Mary Beth Kissane, Walek & Associates and National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI)

Cary I. Klafter, Intel Corporation

Alvin P. Kressler, III, Bloomberg

James Kristie, Directors & Boards

Eric Nowak, Swiss Finance Institute and European Group for Investor Protection (egip)

David A. Silverman, Blue Harbour Group and New York Society of Security Analysts (NYSSA)

Timothy Smith, Walden Asset Management

Frank G. Zarb, Jr., Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP

 


* Address registration requests to: registration@shareholderforum.com

 

 

 

This Forum program is open, free of charge, to anyone concerned with investor interests in the development of standards for conducting shareholder meetings with electronic participation. As stated in the posted Conditions of Participation, the Forum's purpose is to provide decision-makers with access to information and a free exchange of views on the issues presented in the program's Forum Summary. Each participant is expected to make independent use of information obtained through the Forum, subject to the privacy rights of other participants.  It is a Forum rule that participants will not be identified or quoted without their explicit permission.

The organization of this Forum program was encouraged by Walden Asset Management, and is proceeding with the invited leadership support of Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. and Intel Corporation to address issues relevant to broad public interests in marketplace practices, rather than investor decisions relating to only a single company. The Forum may therefore invite program support of several companies that can provide both expertise and examples of leadership relating to the issues being addressed.

Inquiries about this Forum program and requests to be included in its distribution list may be addressed to e-mtg@shareholderforum.com.

The information provided to Forum participants is intended for their private reference, and permission has not been granted for the republishing of any copyrighted material. The material presented on this web site is the responsibility of Gary Lutin, as chairman of the Shareholder Forum.

Shareholder Forum™ is a trademark owned by The Shareholder Forum, Inc., for the programs conducted since 1999 to support investor access to decision-making information. It should be noted that we have no responsibility for the services that Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc., introduced for review in the Forum's 2010 "E-Meetings" program and has since been offering with the “Shareholder Forum” name, and we have asked Broadridge to use a different name that does not suggest our support or endorsement.