News

In response to reports of elevated levels of lobbying activity and spending by Amazon both at home and abroad – including $1.5 million spent to influence Seattle city council elections – Newground Social Investment filed a shareholder proposal for a vote of all shareholders in 2020. The proposal calls for broad public disclosure of the company's lobbying expenditures, and will be voted on at Amazon's annual shareholder meeting, which will take place in late May or early June. We urge shareholders to vote FOR an expansion of Amazon's lobbying disclosure.

A few days after SEC Chair Jay Clayton introduced proposed rule changes that would drastically curtail the rights of investors to file shareholder proposals on important environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concerns, CREDO Action, the advocacy arm of CREDO Mobile, posted an online petition opposing the new rules. The petition garnered 50,461 supporters, by far the largest public statement of opposition to this SEC action from any group.

Newground Social Investment co-filed a shareholder proposal to Facebook that calls on the company to address systemic operational issues that have compromised privacy, led to serious human rights abuses (including genocide and human trafficking), and allowed Russia and others to meddle in the elections of Britain, America, and other countries. The goal of the proposal is to reestablish the platform as a positive force for connecting people and for building peaceful, civil, and democratic societies around the world.

The SEC voted today to consider sweeping changes to the regulations governing the shareholder proposal process which negatively impact small investors as well as proxy advisory services. The proposed changes to Rule 14a-8 include substantially more strict and complicated thresholds for filing, significantly higher resubmission requirements, serious free speech infringements on independent third-party proxy advisory services, and onerous restrictions on an investor’s essential agency right to seek assistance.

Amazon rigs the vote by using two different formulas when counting: one that favors the board election, and another that under-counts shareholder items.

Amazon's proxy engages in Formula Swapping – it uses a favorable vote-counting formula for management's board election, but a more repressive formula to count shareholder proposals. This inconsistent treatment disproportionately benefits management while depressing the tally on shareholder items. This puts stockholders at risk, and reflects the faulty logic that a Company can divine voter intent.