Columbia Law School's Center on Corporate Governance was inaugurated on June 17 with a conference called "Roundtable on Access to the Proxy Statement." The event brought together leading institutional investors and academics to discuss the prospects for direct shareholder nomination through the corporation's own proxy statement of a limited number of "watchdog" directors.
The Securities and Exchange Commission is considering a variety of proposals to authorize some percentage of the shareholders to nominate one or more directors by means of the corporation's own proxy statement. A rule-making petition was filed in May 2003 by the AFL-CIO requesting that the SEC amend its rules to authorize such shareholder nominations.
Professor John Coffee, Jr., is the director of the center.
Panelists at the event included Prof. Coffee, Sarah Teslik, executive director of the Council of Institutional Investors, and Peter Clapman, chief investment counsel of TIAA-CREF.
