June 27, 2011
Unlucky #7: A Quasi-Say-on-Pay Lawsuit
– Broc Romanek, CompensationStandards.com
Last week, a seventh company was sued regarding its pay practices – Bank of New York Mellon in a state court in New York (here’s the complaint). One of the big differences in this lawsuit is unlike the six lawsuits filed against companies that failed to garner a majority of votes in support of their say-on-pay, Bank of New York Mellon received overwhelming support for its say-on-pay (although there was a huge number of broker non-votes). Here’s the Form 8-K reporting the company’s voting results.
Mark Borges notes “this lawsuit appears to be fundamentally different from the others that have been filed following a failed say-on-pay vote. This suit alleges that the company’s board (and its Compensation Committee) acted in contravention of the terms of their long-term incentive plans. What’s interesting to me is that the details of the complaint could only have been drawn from the Compensation Discussion and Analysis, so it’s a classic example of the disclosure providing a roadmap for second-guessing the decisions of the directors.” We continue to post pleadings from these cases in our “Say-on-Pay” Practice Area.
By the way, two of the oldest of the say-on-pay cases have been settled. As noted in this Davis Polk blog: “KeyCorp agreed, according to Reuters, to pay $1.75 million in attorneys’ fees and expenses to settle related suits and Occidental Petroleum, faced with three suits, settled one for an undisclosed amount and had two dismissed.”