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Criticizes SEC’s shareholder proposal pivot, proxy advisor rollback.
WASHINGTON – The American Securities Association (ASA) today sent a letter to the House Financial Services Committee ahead of its hearing to examine the use of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards for investment and the role that well-funded special interests, including proxy advisory firms, play in our capital markets. In the letter, ASA highlighted how the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) shareholder proposal process pivot, which allows shareholder proposals on any issue that has a “broad societal impact”, has failed American investors.
“This SEC’s corporate governance policies have injected political and social issues into the board rooms of Corporate America, costing America’s retirees, working families, and small investors millions of dollars,” said ASA President and CEO Chris Iacovella. “By siding with political activists over mom-and-pop investors, the SEC made an explicit policy choice to put the interests of political activists and the ESG Industrial Complex ahead of Mr. and Mrs. 401(k).”
In the letter, ASA also outlined its support for the SEC’s 2020 proxy advisor reforms while noting this “SEC gutted these reforms after pressure from politically connected special interests who rely on the proxy advisory firms to push their agenda,” Iacovella wrote. “The ASA largely supports bills the Committee will consider that will provide more transparency and accountability for proxy advisory firms.”
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The American Securities Association (ASA) represents the retail and institutional capital markets interests of regional financial services firms who provide Main Street businesses with access to capital and advise hardworking Americans how to create and preserve wealth. ASA’s mission is to promote trust and confidence among investors, facilitate capital formation, and support efficient and competitively balanced capital markets. This mission advances financial independence, stimulates job creation, and increases prosperity. The ASA has a geographically diverse membership of almost one hundred members that spans the Heartland, Southwest, Southeast, Atlantic, and Pacific Northwest regions of the United States.
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