2016 Benchmark Policy Consultation

To ensure its voting policies take into consideration the perspectives of the corporate governance community and the views of its institutional clients, ISS gathers broad input each year from institutional investors, issuers, and other market constituents through a variety of channels and mediums. Following the release last month of its 2016 policy survey results, ISS is now making available for public comment certain proposed voting policies for 2016.

Specifically, ISS is requesting feedback from interested market constituents on new or potential changes to 16 discrete voting policies, including those covering: over-boarding (U.S., Canada, U.K.); board composition and poison pills (Japan); compensation-related votes at externally-managed issuers with poor disclosure (U.S., Canada); non-independent chairs of key committees (Hong Kong, Singapore); equity plan scorecard (Canada); vesting period for equity awards (France); ongoing withholds for unilateral board actions (US); audit fees for smaller companies and issuance of shares without pre-emptive rights (UK); acceptance of deposits from the public (India); and remuneration caps (Brazil).

Comments, which are due by 6pm ET on November 9, will be taken into consideration as ISS formulates updates to its voting policies to be applied for shareholder meetings taking place on or after Feb 1, 2016. ISS will release final 2016 policies on November 18.

All comments received will be published as received, unless otherwise requested in the body of the e-mail submission.