The Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) have released for comment proposed protocols that contain CSA staff guidance on operational processes to tabulate proxy votes for shares held through intermediaries. The protocols have been developed following the CSA's review of the proxy voting infrastructure, which began in August 2013, and a detailed review of six shareholder meetings, as reported by the CSA in its January 2015 progress report.
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Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) today published CSA Multilateral Staff Notice 54-304 Final Report on Review of the Proxy Voting Infrastructure and Request for Comments on Proposed Meeting Vote Reconciliation Protocols. Among other things, the Notice seeks comment on proposed protocols containing CSA staff expectations and guidance for improving the processes involved in the tabulation of proxy votes.
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Many boards today realize that proactive engagement between directors and shareholders can address shareholder concerns which, if ignored, can manifest themselves in undesirable ways such as negative votes on "say on pay" resolutions, withheld votes for directors, proxy contests or other forms of shareholder activism.
The Institute of Corporate Directors ("ICD") has now published "ICD Guidance for Director-Shareholder Engagement" (the "Guidelines") to assist boards with shareholder engagement processes and procedures.
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Recent decisions by financial-sector regulators raise a significant question for Canadian investors and markets: Is there value in offering rewards to encourage whistleblowers to step forward?
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While short sellers exercise ever more influence on Canadian public companies, the regulatory regime governing these speculators has remained somewhat static. As we've seen in the recent case of Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, a company's reputation can be formidably challenged and further scrutiny invited following the actions of a single player.
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On March 13, 2013, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) published for comment proposed changes to the Canadian early warning reporting system and received extensive comments from market participants and industry groups, including a comment letter from Dentons Canada LLP.
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When Fortune looked at the number of Fortune 500 companies with entirely male boards in early 2015, it was disappointing to discover that the number was in the double-digits: 23. But returning to the question this year, we were optimistic that we'd see some notable improvement. Sadly, that's not the case.
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Last year about this time General Electric made a splash with its revamped Form 10-K, which it augmented with a short video introduction from its CEO, Jeff Immelt. This year, GE launched what it calls an Integrated Summary Report, which it describes as "the latest step in contemporizing … investor communications" and is worth checking out.
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TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV), Canada's public venture market, has published an initial progress report on its "Revitalizing TSX Venture Exchange" initiative. This follows from its December 17, 2015 white paper which announced plans to revitalize Canada's public venture market through a series of targeted initiatives aimed at addressing current challenges in the marketplace. The initial progress report issued on March 23, 2016 fine-tunes priorities to improve Canada's public venture market.
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