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Electronic Participation in Shareholder Meetings

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"E-Meetings" Program Reference

 

 

Forum Report: Electronic Participation in Shareholder Meetings

 

Report of Views for Use of "Virtual Meeting" Services

Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc., one of the initiators and supporters of the Shareholder Forum's 2010 "E-Meetings" program, has published its report on the views of a group it assembled to recommend "best practices" in the use of the services it offers for electronic participation in shareholder meetings:

While the Broadridge working group devoted much of its attention to applications of its organizer's specific services, the report provides many useful suggestions of specific practices consistent with the consensus marketplace standards established in 2010. (See the September 30, 2010 Forum Report: Standards for Fair Conduct of Shareholder Meetings Using Electronic Communications.) The report also includes an appendix summarizing each state's laws applicable to electronic participation in shareholder meetings.

Please let me know if you have any questions or comments on this report. Your views will also be appreciated regarding the extent to which shareholder meetings, and particularly provisions for "live" voting, should be addressed in the Forum's new program to establish standards for "Fair Investor Access" in the broader range of investor communications concerning both capital commitment and voting decisions.

             GL – June 14, 2012

 

Gary Lutin

Chairman, The Shareholder Forum

575 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10022

Tel: 212-605-0335

Email: gl@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.