June 2014

Congress to rescue public companies from proxy advisory firms?Who says Congress isn’t popular?  Well, Congress may become much more popular with public company executives if Congressman Patrick McHenry (R-NC) can make good on his recent promise to challenge the power of proxy advisory firms if the SEC doesn’t act.  In a recent keynote speech at an American Enterprise Institute conference on the role of proxy advisory firms in corporate governance, Rep. McHenry stated that proxy advisory firms are a significant issue on Capitol Hill.

As I have blogged about before, there are some real questions as to whether proxy advisory firms actually serve investors’ interests.  While ISS and Glass Lewis are entitled to create a business model based on providing services to institutional investors, there has been either a market or regulatory failure that has forced public companies to consider corporate governance policies promulgated by two unregulated proxy advisory firms before making business decisions.  Public companies should be making decisions based on what makes sense for their company and their shareholders and not based on trying to meet arbitrary policies of ISS or Glass Lewis (policies that seem to be continuously tweaked to keep the proxy advisory firms services relevant).  To be fair, ISS and Glass Lewis claim that their policies aren’t arbitrary at all, but rather their policies reflect their clients’ views.  Of course, for that to be the case, all of their institutional investor clients would need to have a monolithic view toward corporate governance.

Because institutional investors may own hundreds or even thousands of positions in public companies, institutional investors do not have the ability or the resources to research all of the issues facing each of those holdings.  That is where ISS and Glass Lewis step in to provide guidance to these institutional investors.  While some institutional investors have robust voting policies and attempt to make educated and informed voting decisions,
Continue Reading Congress to the rescue?: Congressman hints at legislation to rein in proxy advisory firms

Fee shifting bylaws moved to back burner
Photo by Sharon Drummond

In a case of first impression, the Delaware Supreme Court held that provisions contained in a nonstock corporation’s bylaws, requiring a plaintiff stockholder to reimburse the corporation’s legal expenses if the plaintiff loses on a claim it has brought against the corporation, are facially valid if adopted properly and for a proper purpose (i.e., not for the purpose of deterring meritorious litigation). The court reached its conclusion in its May 8, 2014 decision based on the following factors and analysis: 

  • the Delaware General Corporation Law (“DGCL”) and other Delaware statutes did not forbid the enactment of fee-shifting bylaws;
  • the fee-shifting bylaw related to the business of the corporation, the conduct of its affairs, and its rights or powers or the rights or powers of its stockholders, directors, officers or employees because it related to the allocation of risk in connection with intra-corporation litigation (DGCL § 109(b)); 
  • a provision for fee-shifting was not required to be included in the charter and could therefore be adopted in the bylaws (DGCL § 102(a)); and 
  • because the Delaware Supreme Court has held that bylaws are treated as contracts among a corporation’s stockholders, it was permissible to modify the American attorney’s fees rule (i.e., that each party in litigation bears its own costs and expenses) by adopting a fee-shifting bylaw. 

Because of the statutory basis of the court’s decision, the holding was presumed to also apply to ordinary stock corporations. Thus, a fee-shifting bylaw would likely allow Delaware corporations to require the loser of an intra-corporate lawsuit to pay the corporation’s attorney expenses. 

In response to the Delaware Supreme Court’s ruling, the Delaware State Bar Association (with significant plaintiff’s attorney membership) was considering a proposed amendment to the DGCL would amend Section 102(b)(6) and add a new Section 331 to clarify that these costs cannot be borne by stockholders of stock corporations. The proposed legislation was expected to be presented to the Delaware General Assembly before the end of the current session and, if passed, would have become effective on August 1, 2014. 

However, in a recent development,
Continue Reading Fee-shifting bylaw proposal moved to the back burner pending further investigation

States creating own exemptions for crowd funding
Photo by Josh Turner

The JOBS Act’s crowdfunding provisions were once one of the most eagerly anticipated items contained in that Act. Many companies and their advisors had high hopes that these crowdfunding provisions would open up new arenas for financing smaller companies while easing the costs and challenges associated with securities regulatory compliance. These hopes and dreams have been substantially curtailed as the SEC’s proposed crowdfunding rules (issued in 2013) did not provide the anticipated relief. The SEC received a significant number of comments on these proposed crowdfunding rules, and these comments were predominantly critical due to the perceived regulatory and cost burdens that the proposed Rules seemed to contain.

Hope springs eternal, however, and many people are still eagerly awaiting the SEC’s final crowdfunding regulations to determine if the SEC will adopt a more reasonable position that may be useful to small companies seeking financing. The Federal crowdfunding exemption from registration will not be effective until the SEC issues these final regulations. Many people just want to know what they are actually dealing with here and whether crowdfunding will offer any viable opportunities for small company financing. Somewhat surprisingly given the significant amount of attention and publicity that crowdfunding has generated, the SEC still has not issued those final regulations despite the JOBS Act’s deadline. This situation has caused a significant amount of frustration in the corporate finance community.

Given the uncertainty regarding the status of Federal crowdfunding regulation, some states have seen an opportunity and have taken somewhat bold steps in establishing crowdfunding exemptions on the state level. The states moving ahead of the SEC is somewhat unusual, but it appears that the initial impact of these state crowdfunding initiatives may be economically beneficial to these states.

The predominant model for these state crowdfunding structures is the creation of an intrastate crowdfunding exemption from registration. The states have been very creative in their efforts, as they appear to have used the strong desire for a useful crowdfunding regulatory structure to create state structures that will help to provide economic growth in the states. This is also very compatible with the nature of crowdfunding – since many crowdfunding projects are smaller and localized, they may not be affected by being required to be contained in any one state.

The participating states have mainly modeled their crowdfunding regulations to be
Continue Reading States take the lead on crowdfunding