Hunton Retail Law Resource

One novel feature of the 2020 proxy season has been the surge in virtual shareholder meetings. For example, one provider of virtual meeting services reported four times as many virtual shareholder meetings as last year. Although the rise in virtual meetings this year resulted from safety precautions surrounding COVID-19, after weighing the benefits and becoming more comfortable with conducting business remotely, it is likely that many companies will continue to use virtual shareholder meetings or hybrid in-person and virtual meetings in the future.

The Council of Institutional Investors (CII) and Templum, Inc. (Templum) each recently submitted comments to the SEC to call for the agency to embrace blockchain technology in a variety of contexts regarding the registration and transfer of securities. The dominant system for clearance and settlement of securities in the United States has its roots in the “paperwork crisis” of the early 1970s, and the resulting regulatory regime based on immobilization of securities is largely inconsistent with a blockchain-based system of traceable shares.

For many public companies, the annual meeting voting process is littered with intermediaries and inefficiencies that can result in a lack of shareholder engagement. Proposals are often voted on by proxies instead of by shareholders, oftentimes weeks in advance of the meeting. Few shareholders attend annual meetings in person. Large institutional shareholders may be granted engagement opportunities with management of the company that are not afforded to individual shareholders. These factors can result in a lack of transparency in the voting process and asymmetrical voting power amongst shareholders. Blockchain technology has several potential applications that can remedy these inefficiencies and restore shareholder trust and engagement.

Recently, Hunton Andrews Kurth launched a new blog, C-Suite Compensation Center. The blog will discuss compensation issues that are increasingly complex due to evolving laws, changing administrative rules and increasing shareholder activity.

The members of our Compensation practice group are multi-disciplinary within the various substantive areas of compensation. As multi-disciplinary practitioners, we take a holistic and full-service approach to compensation matters that considers all substantive areas of compensation.

Read the latest blog posts.