March 25, 2011
Shareholder Proposals: Incentive Compensation & Risk Report Excludable If Too Broad
– Broc Romanek, CompensationStandards.com
Recently, Corp Fin posted this no-action response to Wells Fargo regarding a shareholder proposal that asked the company to prepare a report “to describe the board’s actions to ensure that employee compensation does not lead to excessive and unnecessary risk-taking that may jeopardize the sustainability of the company’s operations. It further states that the report must disclose specified information about the compensation paid to the 100 highest paid employees.”
The Corp Fin response is interesting. It notes that incentive compensation paid by a major financial institution to those that are in a position to cause the company to take inappropriate risks is a “significant policy issue” – but then the Staff goes on to note that the proposal relates to the compensation paid to a large number of employees, thus falling into the “general employee compensation” line of no-action letters since it was not limited to senior executive officers. As a result, the Staff allowed the company to exclude the proposal under (i)(7) as an ordinary business matter.
This letter is interesting also because it presented the Staff with the opportunity to take the position that the general compensation practices that lead to excessive and unnecessary risk taking (and board actions to avoid such risk taking) raise significant policy issues, which would arguably bring its no-action positions in line with the disclosures that the SEC recently concluded should be required in proxy materials. Even though some might disagree with the Staff’s position, it at least avoided yet another exception to the general rule that proposals relating to general employee compensation relate to ordinary business matters and may be excluded under (i)(7). Thanks to Keir Gumbs of Covington & Burling for pointing this letter out!