ISS, the dominant proxy advisory firm, recently unveiled its new ISS Governance QuickScore product, which will replace its Governance Risk Indicators (“GRId”) next month. ISS asserts that QuickScore is an improvement on the GRId product because it is “quantitatively driven” (with a “secondary policy-based overlay”). Using an algorithm purportedly derived from correlations between governance factors and financial metrics, QuickScore will rank companies in deciles within each of ISS’ existing four pillars—Audit, Board Structure, Compensation and Shareholder Rights – and provide an overall governance rating to “provide a quick understanding of a company’s relative governance risk to an index or region.” While one can understand, as a business matter, ISS’ desire to continually reinvent and “improve” its products, the constant shifting of goalposts creates uncertainty and inefficiency. More important, QuickScore will likely provide a no more complete or accurate assessment of corporate governance practices than its predecessors, and it may be worse.

When ISS adopted its GRId product three years ago, we cautiously noted that it offered greater transparency and granularity than the blunt one-dimensional CGQ ratings that it replaced. Unfortunately, in our view, going back to a system of opaque quantified ratings is a move in the wrong direction. After a substantial investment of management time and effort, companies have familiarity with the GRId “level of concern” approach, which at least helps them understand and address any legitimate issues or explain any divergences from ISS’ “best practices.” While ISS retains GRId’s formulaic approach, to the extent that it does not share the weightings it assigns to the various governance factors, it reduces transparency as companies would not be able to compute their own QuickScores.

…continue reading: ISS Governance QuickScore: Back to the Future

In a second Chancery transcript ruling on the subject in recent weeks, Chancellor Leo E. Strine, Jr. has made clear that Delaware has no per se rule against “Don’t Ask, Don’t Waive” standstill provisions (which prohibit a party subject to a standstill, including a losing bidder in an auction, from requesting a waiver from its standstill obligations). The Chancellor also provided guidance for using such a provision as an “auction gavel” to secure the best price reasonably available to a target company involved in a sales process. The ruling in In Re Ancestry.com is a welcome clarification that will help maintain the vitality of auctions where a target wants to incentivize bidders to come forth with their highest bid.

…continue reading: “Don’t Ask, Don’t Waive Standstills” Revisited (Rapidly)

A recent transcript ruling in the Delaware Court of Chancery could have a significant impact on the market for control of public companies, particularly in an auction context, if broadly adopted.

Vice Chancellor Laster’s bench decision in In Re Complete Genomics, Inc. Shareholder Litigation questions the enforceability of a standstill agreement that prohibits the bidder from privately requesting a waiver to make a topping bid, which he labeled a “Don’t Ask, Don’t Waive” standstill. The Vice Chancellor did not object to the bidder being prohibited from publicly requesting a waiver (which he understood would clearly circumvent the standstill), but held that directors have a continuing duty to be informed of all material facts, including whether the rejected bidder is willing to offer a higher price. By analogy to cases holding that a board that has agreed to sell the company may not close its ears to the possibility of higher bids, he suggested that “a Don’t Ask, Don’t Waive Standstill is impermissible because it has the same disabling effect as the no-talk clause, although on a bidder-specific basis.” While this may seem favorable for bidders, it raises questions about the protections afforded by typical standstill arrangements and the willingness of targets to engage in transaction discussions if they have doubts about those protections. The ruling also raises questions about its potential extension to standstill agreements in joint ventures and other commercial contexts, which could undermine the value of contractually bargained-for protections.

…continue reading: Don’t Ask, Don’t Waive Standstills

Institutional Shareholder Services has released its 2013 Corporate Governance Policy Updates, which represent a more moderate approach than the proposals it released for comment in October. These changes, which will generally apply for the 2013 proxy season, continue the trend of narrowing director discretion in matters traditionally considered to be within directors’ authority. In addition, ISS’ expansion into social policy matters appears often to be at odds with shareholder and corporate interests and is far more likely to benefit special interest groups. It should be noted, though, that ISS took into account many of the comments it received and in some cases moved from a one-size-fits-all approach to a more appropriate case-by-case analysis. Although it is important that boards of directors be cognizant of ISS voting policies, it is essential that, in their decision-making, directors carefully consider the best interests of the corporations they serve and not merely defer to shareholder advocacy groups.

…continue reading: ISS Moderates Proposed Voting Policy Updates for the 2013 Proxy Season

A small but influential alliance of activist investor groups, academics and trade unions continues — successfully it must be said — to seek to overhaul corporate governance in America to suit their particular agendas and predilections. We believe that this exercise in corporate deconstruction is detrimental to the economy and society at large. We continue to oppose it.

The Shareholder Rights Project, Harvard Law School’s misguided “clinical program” which we have previously criticized, today issued joint press releases with eight institutional investors, principally state and municipal pension funds, trumpeting their recent successes in eliminating staggered boards and advertising their “hit list” of 74 more companies to be targeted in the upcoming proxy season. Coupled with the new ISS standard for punishing directors who do not immediately accede to shareholder proposals garnering a majority of votes cast (even if they do not attract enough support to be passed) — which we also recently criticized — this is designed to accelerate the extinction of the staggered board.

…continue reading: Harvard’s Shareholder Rights Project is Still Wrong

Activist investors continue to aggressively exploit a variety of techniques — including hedging, securities borrowing, total return swaps and other contractual arrangements — to avoid public disclosure of their investments and to obtain governance rights out of proportion with their economic stakes. We have long warned against these abuses, which are not confined to the U.S. market but are truly a global phenomenon. Courts, including the Supreme Court of Delaware, have emphasized that corporate voting rights and economic interests should not be “uncoupled” but should travel together. The SEC is considering regulating the use of derivatives in its “proxy plumbing” initiative, and we have encouraged it to focus on “empty voting” abuses.

A recent case in Canada illustrates the problems with the current system. In TELUS Corp. v. CDS Clearing and Depository Services Inc., a U.S.-based hedge fund, Mason Capital, amassed a voting position of almost 20% in TELUS, a Canadian telecommunications provider with a dual-class capitalization. Mason hedged its entire position by shorting TELUS’s non-voting shares. Although Mason was the company’s largest voting shareholder, it would be unaffected whether TELUS shares increased or decreased in value, but rather stood to profit if the price differential between the voting shares and the non-voting shares widened. Mason used its (empty) voting position to defeat TELUS’s plan to collapse its dual class share structure, and sought to call a shareholder meeting to approve resolutions requiring a minimum premium for any conversion of non-voting shares into voting common, which would be advantageous for Mason, but not necessarily for other shareholders whose economic interests are aligned with their voting rights.

…continue reading: Canadian Court Addresses Continuing Use of Empty-Voting Tactics

Testifying recently before a House Financial Services subcommittee, SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro stated that, because of capacity constraints, proposing a revised mandatory rule on shareholder access to company proxy materials is “not on the Commission’s immediate agenda.” She noted, however, that the issue is one that the SEC will “continue to look at over time.”

Last summer, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the SEC’s Rule 14a-11, finding that the SEC had “acted arbitrarily and capriciously” in adopting the rule without adequately assessing its economic effects. At the time, the SEC said that it was considering its options but noted that its changes facilitating private ordering in proxy access were not impacted by the Court’s decision.

In the current 2012 proxy season, less than two dozen companies have received proxy access proposals. This modest level of activity is in part explained by activist shareholders waiting to learn whether or not the SEC would be re-promulgating a mandatory rule. Because it is now clear that this will not happen, at least not for the 2013 proxy season, we can expect the focus on private ordering through shareholder proposals to continue and increase.

…continue reading: SEC Not Pursuing Mandatory Proxy Access at this Time

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has affirmed a District Court judgment holding an interloper that breached its standstill agreement liable for tortious interference to the winning bidder in an auction. The interloper is required to pay the winner the incremental amount – over $100 million – that it took to secure shareholder approval for its deal, and may also be liable for punitive damages. In addition to providing important guidance on tortious interference claims in the M&A context, the case offers useful reminders for buyers, sellers and would-be over-bidders in the art of running, winning and “topping” an auction for a public company.

The case stems from a four-year old transaction in which, after our client Ventas won an auction to buy Sunrise REIT, losing bidder Health Care Property Investors (“HCP”) went public with a topping bid at a 20% premium, even though this was prohibited by its standstill agreement with the target. The public announcement of the topping bid did not disclose that it was conditional or that it violated the standstill. Ventas demanded that Sunrise REIT enforce HCP’s standstill agreement as required by the merger agreement. Both the Ontario trial and appellate courts ordered Sunrise REIT to do so, upholding a selling board’s prerogative to structure an auction in a manner that the board believes will maximize shareholder value (including by requiring “best and final” offers from participants and agreeing to enforce a standstill obligation against a losing bidder).

…continue reading: Sixth Circuit Upholds Tortious Interference Verdict Against Auction Loser’s Overbid

Since their emergence about ten years ago, “top-up” options have become a common feature in tender offers forming the first stage in a “two-step” cash acquisition. A recent decision of the Delaware Court of Chancery confirms that properly structured top-up options will withstand legal challenge and effectively facilitate prompt completion of a back-end merger. Olson v. EV3, Inc., et al., C.A. No. 5583-VCL (Del. Ch. Feb. 21, 2011).

A top-up option granted by an issuer to the acquirer enables the acquirer, once it has obtained control of the target company in the tender offer, to immediately increase its ownership to the threshold required (90 percent in Delaware) to effect a short-form merger and secure full ownership of the target without having to hold a shareholder meeting. As Vice Chancellor Laster recognized in his recent opinion, this approach offers advantages to all parties. By avoiding the cost and delay of having to hold a special meeting whose outcome is a foregone conclusion, the buyer is able to close the back-end merger sooner, thus reducing transaction risk, facilitating efficient financing, and speeding integration of the acquired company. Target shareholders, for their part, also benefit from a reduction in transaction risk, and, importantly, receive their merger consideration months earlier than they otherwise would.

…continue reading: Delaware Decision Supports Properly Structured Top-Up Options in Tender Offers

The Dodd-Frank Act mandates a variety of changes to the governance, disclosure and compensation practices of all public companies. Many of the provisions of the Act require further SEC rulemaking and interpretation before definitive responses can be implemented, but companies should become familiar with the pending changes and take preparatory steps where possible. The purpose of this memo, which we will periodically update, is to provide a framework for our recommendations by highlighting certain actions companies should consider taking immediately, as well as certain key provisions of the Act which will require responses in the longer term. (Links to our earlier memos are embedded throughout and in the attached index.)

…continue reading: Governance Changes Under Dodd-Frank