Britney Spears has nothing on Institutional Shareholder Services, better known as ISS.  ISS is rolling out proposed new voting policies for the 2015 proxy season.  ISS often uses more words to tout how transparent it is than to explain its voting policies clearly, and the draft policies being considered for 2015 are no different.

One new proposed policy addresses voting on shareholder proposals on independent board chairs.  ISS proposes to expand the list of factors that will be considered in developing a voting recommendation and to look at these factors in a more “holistic” manner.  (The current policy is to support the proposals unless the company meets all of the criteria.)  So this seems like a good thing.  However, ISS indicates that the new policy is not expected to change the percentage of independent chair proposals that it will support.  The obvious question is, then, how will the new policy really work?  Your guess is as good as mine (which frankly isn’t very good).

The other new proposed policy provides additional information regarding the “scorecard” that ISS will use to evaluate equity plans.  Like the independent chair policy above, some more criteria are laid out, but it’s impossible to tell how the factors – or, indeed, the new scorecard, will be weighed or will work – thus assuring that companies seeking shareholder approval of equity plans will have to continue to use ISS’s consulting service to find out whether a new plan will pass muster.

I could just as easily have referred to Yogi Berra as to Britney Spears, because if this isn’t déjá vu all over again, I don’t know what is.

Your thoughts?