Dimensional Fund Advisors’ updated Proxy Voting Guidelines include increased expectations for companies relative to political and lobbying oversight and disclosure to ensure alignment with shareholder interests:
In evaluating a portfolio company’s policies related to political and lobbying expenditure, we expect the following practices:
- The board to adopt policies and procedures to oversee political and lobbying expenditures;
- The details of the board oversight, including the policies and procedures governing such expenditures, to be disclosed publicly; and
- That board oversight of political and lobbying activities, such as spending, should include ensuring that the portfolio company’s publicly stated positions are in alignment with its related activities and spending.
Dimensional joins BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, and other asset managers that have relatively recently raised their expectations of companies on these topics, and that are increasingly targeted by other institutional investors (see “Funds Target Large Asset Managers”) to hold themselves and their portfolio companies accountable for disclosure and alignment of political activities with corporate positions.
Access additional resources on our Political Contributions and Disclosure and Institutional Investors pages.
This post first appeared in the weekly Society Alert!