Petition To End Tipping Blank Votes To Management

As Jim McRitchie from CorpGov.net reported yesterday, a rulemaking petition was filed on May 15 to amend Rule 14a-4(b)(1) and is available for public comment. Jim wrote, “The problem is that when retail shareowners vote but leave items on their proxy blank, those items are routinely vote by their bank or broker as the subject company’s soliciting committee recommends. Current SEC rules grant them discretion to do so. ...  We believe that when voting fields are left blank on the proxy by the shareowner, they should be counted as abstentions.”  Read in-depth about this important issue at http://www.corpgov.net/news/news.html.