The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) on Tuesday announced it will hold a roundtable next month to examine proposed reforms designed to improve the proxy voting process.
The roundtable will take place on Nov. 18 at the OSC’s offices in Toronto.
The proposed reforms were published back in March by the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA).
The regulators are aiming to respond to concerns from both issuers and investors about the integrity of the proxy voting process, which has been criticized as complex, opaque and fragmented.
In particular, the CSA is focusing on the vote reconciliation aspect of the proxy voting process, and is proposing a set of protocols intended to improve the accuracy, reliability and transparency of shareholder votes.
The protocols set out the expectations of CSA staff on the roles and responsibilities of the key entities that are involved in the proxy voting process, and provide guidance on the kinds of operational processes that these firms should implement “to support accurate, reliable and accountable meeting vote reconciliation,” the CSA says in a notice.
At the forthcoming roundtable, the OSC will hold panel discussions on the proposed protocols that, it says, “will reflect a diversity of views, so as to facilitate a balanced debate.” Further details on the agenda and the panellists will be published later this month.