Follow This pauses 2025 proposals amid investor reluctance
Responsible Investor | Dutch activist NGO Follow This will not file proposals for the 2025 proxy season amid investor hesitation to back votes, it announced today.
Mark van Baal told Responsible Investor that investors are currently “reluctant to use their votes given the political and legal situation, particularly in the US”.
“For example, states are going after investors for considering climate and sustainability, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has adopted new guidance on shareholder proposals and engagement, Exxon sued shareholders over a resolution, and now we have the trade wars,” he said.
“There’s a lot of hesitancy and we decided to pause for a year to engage investors to find out what’s preventing them from using their votes and how we can get them on board. We still believe in our mission and the power of shareholder resolution.
“It’s a pause to get more investors on board and to work out how we can work together to prepare for more attacks on shareholder rights.”
[…]“Under the first Trump administration we knew we could not get meaningful proposals passed the SEC and we know it wont happen in his second term,” said van Baal. “As soon as Trump was elected, we knew we could not file in the US, at least for now.”
[…]For van Baal, organisations like Follow This and ShareAction have a purpose of pushing the envelope, “but investors have to join us”.
“When we started, we filed on our own, but now we need more co-filers to show companies this is a fair ask which is backed by institutional investors.”
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