Proxy advisor Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. (ISS) Friday released its 2013 policy updates for Canada, the United States, Europe and Asia and other international markets.
Every year, the firm’s policy formulation committee sets benchmark guidelines to be used in its proxy voting research for the upcoming year. To develop those guidelines and ensure its voting policies take into consideration the perspectives of the corporate governance community and the views of its institutional clients, it gathers input from institutional investors, companies and a variety of other market players, the firm notes.
The guidelines consider market-specific recommended best practices, transparency, and disclosure when addressing issues such as board structure, director accountability, corporate governance standards, executive compensation, shareholder rights, corporate transactions, and social/environmental issues. They also aim to take into account regional regulatory changes, best practices, voting trends, and academic research.
For Canada, the new guidelines update its approach to slate voting; set out voting considerations for majority-owned companies; provides a new policy approach to management say-on-pay resolutions; and updates its policy on shareholder proposals concerning social and environmental issues; among other things. The updated policies are to apply to all publicly traded company shareholder meetings as of February 1, 2013.
Canadian securities regulators are currently considering the possible regulation of proxy advisors, such as ISS. Earlier this year, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) published a consultation paper setting out possible options for regulating these firms, which are not currently subject to any regulatory oversight. At this point, the CSA has not indicated whether it believes any regulation is needed or not.