Compound Conflicts of Interest in the US Proxy System

The current proxy voting system in the United States has become the subject of considerable controversy. Because institutional investment managers have the authority to vote their clients’ proxies, they have a fiduciary obligation to those clients. Frequently, in an attempt to fulfill that obligatio...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of business ethics
Authors: Clark, Cynthia E. (Author) ; Van Buren, Harry J. (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Springer Science + Business Media B. V 2013
In: Journal of business ethics
Year: 2013, Volume: 116, Issue: 2, Pages: 355-371
Further subjects:B Proxy voting
B Governance ratings
B Fiduciary Duty
B United States
B conflicts of interest
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Description
Summary:The current proxy voting system in the United States has become the subject of considerable controversy. Because institutional investment managers have the authority to vote their clients’ proxies, they have a fiduciary obligation to those clients. Frequently, in an attempt to fulfill that obligation, these institutional investors employ proxy advisory services to manage the thousands of votes they must cast. However, many proxy advisory services have conflicts of interest that inhibit their utility to those seeking to discharge their fiduciary duties. In this article, we describe the current proxy advisory network as an example of how current notions of conflicts of interest fall short when explaining the behavior of an interconnected set of market players whose remit is to act in the best interests of their investors. We discuss what participants in this system should do to bring transparency and accuracy to the proxy advice industry.
ISSN:1573-0697
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of business ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1007/s10551-012-1460-x