Please visit our Policy & Litigation Page to see recent examples of ICCR’s legal and policy work in support of shareholders’ rights (including litigation and amicus briefs, public statements, and letters).
In 1942, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) promulgated its first rule regulating shareholder proposals – Rule 14a8. Since that time, shareholder proposals have been a key mechanism for investors to engage with the companies they own, and they have become an indispensable part of corporate governance. Shareholder engagement has encouraged many companies to adopt governance policies that are now widely adopted as best practices and recognized as important to long-term value creation. And resolutions relating to environmental and social impacts have led to important changes such as widespread adoption of human rights due diligence, corporate codes of conduct, and better management of climate risks.
However, in recent years responsible investors have faced serious headwinds in our collective work seeking the freedom to invest according to our values, and greater accountability for corporate impacts. Those obstacles have included “anti-ESG” bills and laws, as well as significant new changes and roadblocks at the SEC. Political opponents of our work seek to halt investor and corporate progress on climate change and other critical systemic issues with legislative, legal, and regulatory challenges to the shareholder proposal process and to responsible investing more broadly. All of these efforts are part of the broader attack on regulatory structures and other mechanisms to set sensible guardrails on corporate conduct. ICCR and our allies are continuing to push back, and making the case for the critical importance of shareholder engagement.
Current Initiatives:
Through a combination of legal action, letters to Congress, and joint statements, ICCR and its allies As You Sow, Jim McRitchie, The Investor Rights Forum, CERES, the Council of Institutional Investors, US SIF, and PRI are pushing back against the restrictions to shareholders’ rights and access to the corporate proxy.
Shareholder Rights and SEC Policy Resources
Read these resources related to the preservation of rule 14a-8 and shareholder democracy.
Many corporations embrace the compelling business case for sustainability, and its long-term positive impact on shareholder value. They endorse this direction because they understand this is a sensible and prudent way to do business. This is a growing trend in the global business community and is not one that companies are likely to retreat from […]
Published March, 2026. ICCR has been publishing the Proxy Resolutions and Voting Guide annually since 1974 as a way to educate and build support for member proposals. In it, you will find all ICCR member-sponsored proposals for 2026 corporate proxies along with a preliminary overview of the proxy season. Please feel free to share this resource widely with your […]
On January 7, 2026, ICCR filed a Motion for Summary Judgment in its challenge against Texas statute SB 2337. ICCR’s suit, filed in federal court in November 2025 and joined by United Church Funds and Ceres, focused on a newly-adopted law that imposes unprecedented and burdensome unconstitutional obligations on ICCR and similarly-situated organizations. ICCR’s argument […]
On December 11, 2025, the Trump Administration issued an Executive Order yesterday directing federal agencies to consider actions targeting proxy advisory firms, shareholder proposals, and ESG investing more broadly. In response, Josh Zinner, CEO of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), issued the following statement.
On November 5, 2025, A coalition of five leading investor organizations—including the AFL-CIO, Ceres, Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), Shareholder Rights Group, and US SIF submitted the following letter to SEC Chair Paul Atkins expressing serious concerns about his keynote speech at an October forum in Delaware. The speech triggered serious investor concerns regarding […]
On September 30, 2025 shareholder representatives As You Sow and Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility (ICCR) filed a request with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to rescind its effective approval of ExxonMobil’s “Retail Voting Program.” Exxon’s program, under the guise of ‘assisting’ retail voters, seeks to opt retail shareholders into a program that […]
On August 26, 2025, the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), a coalition of over 300 institutional investors who, for more than 50 years, have been leaders in faith-consistent and sustainable investing, issued the following statement in defense of this practice as a question of religious freedom protected under the U.S. Constitution.
Published March, 2025. The upcoming 2026 edition will be released in late March, 2026. ICCR has been publishing the Proxy Resolutions and Voting Guide annually since 1974 as a way to educate and build support for member proposals. In it, you will find all ICCR member-sponsored proposals for 2025 corporate proxies along with a preliminary overview […]
Vote for the Special Meeting Proposal 8 and Against the Vague, Advisory Only, Special Meeting Proposal 7 Proposal 7 seems to be a bait and switch proposal that SNX put in its annual meeting proxy after Proposal 8 was submitted.Proposal 7 is vague on whether SNX can take shareholder approval of Proposal 7 as a […]
The investor right to file shareholder proposals has recently come under attack from legislation in Congress, lawsuits filed in the federal courts in Texas and new regulatory guidance from the SEC. “Shareholder Proposals: An Essential Investor Right,” published on February 24, 2025 by the Shareholder Rights Group, in conjunction with the Interfaith Center on Corporate […]
On Wednesday, February 18, ICCR, the Shareholder Rights Group, and As You Sow sent a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission requesting that the Staff refrain from applying the guidance provided in Staff Legal Bulletin 14M to any shareholder proposals filed with companies prior to the issuance of the bulletin on February 12, 2025.
ICCR, along with the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, NY Comptroller Brad Lander, Zevin Asset Management, and Trillium Asset Management, filed this amicus brief in the 5th circuit making the investor case in support of the FTC’s rule banning non-compete agreements.