Petty legal filings. Diversionary ballot measures. Counting abstentions as no votes. These are just some of the tactics U.S. oil companies used this spring to quash efforts by investors to win the right to nominate climate experts for board seats.
Led by New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer and proposed at 75 U.S. companies in various industries this year, the so-called proxy access measure would give investor groups who own 3 percent of a company for more than three years the right to nominate directors. At the 19 oil and gas companies targeted, the aim was to demand more accountability on global warming.
While the non-binding measure passed at two-thirds of all the companies targeted, and at 15 of the 19 energy companies, some took unusual steps to block it. Oilfield services provider Nabors Industries Ltd, for example, counted non-votes from brokers as votes against the proposal. Still, the measure passed at Nabors, which didn’t respond to requests for comment.