The investor right to file shareholder proposals has recently come under attack from legislation in Congress, lawsuits filed in the federal courts in Texas and new regulatory guidance from the SEC. “Shareholder Proposals: An Essential Investor Right,” published on February 24, 2025 by the Shareholder Rights Group, in conjunction with the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility and US SIF, offers a detailed and thoughtful defense of shareholder proposals. It catalogues their role in creating a powerful public platform for challenging and improving corporate policies, practices, performance and impacts and providing an important mechanism for surfacing investor perspectives on material issues.
The report demonstrates how shareholder proposals have enabled investors to safeguard their portfolios from risks and protect the American public by helping to catalyze positive corporate change on an array of issues such as excessive drug pricing by pharmaceutical companies, railroad safety, online child safety at tech companies, and oversight of addictive opioids by manufacturers. It also spotlights improvements in corporate governance such as annual board elections, independent directors and majority voting that have occurred from decades of shareholder proposals led largely by a dedicated group of individual investors seeking structural changes at corporations to improve board and management accountability.
