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<h4>Resolution Details</h4>
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<strong>Company:</strong>
<p>PayPal</p>
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<strong>Year:</strong>
<p>2026 </p>
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<strong>Issue Area:</strong>
<p>Corporate Governance </p>
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<strong>Focus Area:</strong>
<p>Shareholder Rights </p>
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<strong>Status:</strong>
<p>Filed</p>
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<h2>Resolution Text</h2>
<p><strong>RESOLVED</strong>: Shareholders ask our board to take the steps necessary to amend the appropriate company governing documents to give the owners of a combined 10% of our outstanding common stock the power to call a special shareholder meeting. Such a special shareholder meeting can be an easy to convene online shareholder meeting.</p>
<p><strong>SUPPORTING STATEMENT</strong>:</p>
<p dir=”ltr”>There shall be no unnecessary poison pill discriminatory rule to require ownership of shares for a specific period of time in order for shares to participate in calling for a special shareholder meeting and no unnecessary requirement that most such shareholders be record holders.</p>
<p dir=”ltr”>To make up for our complete lack of a right to act by written consent we need the right of 10% of shares to call for a special shareholder meeting. Hundreds of major companies provide shareholders with the right to act by written consent.</p>
<p dir=”ltr”>Companies, that do not provide for a shareholder right to act by written consent, can have a more reasonable stock ownership threshold to call for a special shareholder meeting. Southwest Airlines is an example of a company that does not provide for shareholder written consent and yet provides for 10% of shares to call for a special shareholder meeting.</p>
<p dir=”ltr”>Calling a special shareholder meeting is hardly ever used by shareholders but the main point of the right to call a special shareholder meeting is that it gives shareholders a Plan B option if management is not interested in good faith shareholder engagement.</p>
<p dir=”ltr”>This proposal received 44% support at the 2025 PayPal Holdings (PYPL) annual meeting without any special effort by the proponent. This was in spite of the PYPL special effort against the 2025 proposal. PYPL made a special EDGAR filing opposing the 2025 proposal.</p>
<p dir=”ltr”>This 44% support likely represented more than 50% shareholder support from the PYPL shares that have access to independent proxy voting advice which gives these shareholders insight to both sides of this important issue.</p>
<p dir=”ltr”>A special shareholder meeting can be called to introduce a company to a new strategy. Making it less difficult for shareholders to call a special shareholder meeting may be an incentive for the PYPL directors and executives to develop a turnaround strategy on their own.</p>
<p dir=”ltr”>PYPL sorely needs a turnaround. PYPL stock was at $310 in 2021 and fell to $60 in late 2025. The 5-year total return for PYPL is minus-65%.</p>

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<h3>Lead Filer</h3>
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<div class=”views-field views-field-nothing”><span class=”field-content”> John Chevedden</span></div><div class=”views-field views-field-title views-field-field-shareholder”><span class=”field-content”>Chevedden Corporate Governance</span></div>
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Resolution Details

Company:

PayPal

Year:

2023

Issue Area:

Finance, Human Rights & Worker Rights

Focus Area:

Business Standards, Freedom of Expression / Internet

Status:

Omitted

Resolution Text

In June 2021, the American Civil Liberties Union launched a campaign1 calling on PayPal to provide nondiscriminatory financial services to all users. ACLU argued that accountability on human rights, civil liberties, and sound technology policy necessitates that PayPal provide transparency to users. If PayPal decides to close an individual or business account, PayPal must provide meaningful notice about the particular Terms of Services provision that was violated, and users should have the opportunity to appeal in a timely and efficient manner.

In addition to blocking the accounts of sex workers,2 PayPal routinely targets users for speech protected by the First Amendment3 including:

Freezing the account4 of News Media Canada for a payment to submit an article about Syrian refugees for an award;
Terminating service5 to a user for using open-source software enabling anonymous communication; • Stalling6 efforts to provide bail support to protestors;
Banning legal sex workers access to services, which disproportionately harms Black, Brown and trans communities.7

As Electronic Frontier Foundation notes,8 because a few companies dominate online payment processing, PayPal wields tremendous power to control the speech environment by turning off the financial faucet for users who express disfavored views or discuss controversial subject matter. Merchants and individuals on PayPal’s blacklist may find themselves in a financially precarious situation since payment platforms are extremely centralized, creating what in practice is a duopoly. Any argument that those dissatisfied with PayPal’s terms and conditions should simply seek other payment methods is not particularly realistic.

PayPal’s 2021 Global Impact Report touts its commitment to “[b]uilding a digital economy that powers a more inclusive and resilient world,” and yet that report fails to include any information relevant to account suspensions or actions that may chill free speech.9

PayPal’s poor transparency reporting veils the contradiction between PayPal’s human rights policy and account suspensions and other potential violations of freedom of speech. This poses significant legal, reputational, and financial risk to PayPal and its shareholders.

RESOLVED: Shareholders request the Board revise PayPal’s Transparency Reports to provide clear explanations of the number and categories of account suspensions and closures that may reasonably be expected to limit freedom of expression or access to information or financial services. Such revision may exclude proprietary or legally privileged information.

Supporting Statement

Proponents suggest the company include in its Transparency Reports, or explain why it cannot disclose:

The substantive content of account suspension decisions, by country, including which individuals or businesses made requests; number of accounts removed by category such as “encrypted communications,” VPN, etc.; and external legal or policy basis and internal company criteria for removals;
Any indicia of impact, such as the number of prior account suspension warnings and whether existing usage of the account was eliminated;
Any efforts by the company to mitigate the harmful effects.

 

1 https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbtq-rights/paypal-and-venmo-are-shutting-out-sex-workers-putting-lives-and- livelihoods-at-risk
2 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-11-14/porn-site-says-paypal-ban-will-hurt-more-than-100-000- performers
3 https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/fire-statement-free-speech-and-online-payment-processors
4 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/paypal-freezes-flin-flon-newspaper-syrian-refugees-1.3977292
5 https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/06/paypal-shuts-down-long-time-tor-supporter-no-recourse
6 https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7qbnz/venmo-paypal-freeze-transfer-limits-bail-funds
7 https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbtq-rights/sex-work-is-real-work-and-its-time-to-treat-it-that-way/
8 https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/02/kafkaesque-battle-soulseek-and-paypal-and-why-free-speech-defenders- should-be
9 https://s201.q4cdn.com/346340278/files/doc_downloads/PayPal-2021-Global-Impact-Report.pdf

  

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Resolution Details

Company:

PayPal

Year:

2023

Issue Area:

Human Rights & Worker Rights, Inclusiveness

Focus Area:

Conflict Zones, Middle East

Status:

Vote

Vote Percentage:

11.20%


PayPal Ensuring People in Conflict Zones do not Suffer Discriminatory Exclusion – Proxy Exempt Solicitation


Resolution Text

WHEREAS: Our Company’s mission statement affirms “We believe that full participation in the global economy is a right, not a privilege. We have an obligation to empower people to exercise this right and improve financial health.”1 Elsewhere it reinforces the notion that “affordable and convenient financial services should be a right for all rather than a privilege for the few.”

Our Company describes “Who We Are” by stating “Our mission is to democratize financial services to ensure that everyone, regardless of background or economic standing, has access to affordable, convenient, and secure products and services to take control of their financial lives.”

Our Company states “We are available in more than 200 countries/regions supporting 25 currencies. Send and receive payments easily over borders and language barriers. We’re here for you, wherever you are.”2 This includes service to over 425 million customers, including operations in high-conflict countries such as Yemen and Somalia and heavily-sanctioned countries such as Russia.

In this context, we are troubled by years of reliable reports3 that individuals with Palestinian bank accounts cannot use PayPal to send or receive money while individuals living in a similar location but with accounts at other banks have full access to Paypal services.

The US Treasury states that transactions with private Palestinian companies and individuals are authorized, stating “prohibitions are not territorial in nature.”4

Visa, Mastercard, and Western Union services have been available for years to these customers5 and Palestinian banks are part of SWIFT,6 the global system for secure cross-border payments. In 2021, PayPal’s largest competitor, Apple Pay, started operating in Palestine.

Applying a restriction indiscriminately to all residents with Palestinian bank accounts limits our company’s ability to expand its business to more than two million potential customers,7 and impairs the development of business opportunities for the local 150,000 small and medium enterprises.8 This limits opportunities for Palestinians to access livelihood and work opportunities.

It also hinders economic development in conflict with the company’s own Code of Business Conduct & Ethics, which states that the company respects “the rights enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and work[s] to align [its] efforts with the U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights and other international standards.”9

RESOLVED: Shareholders request that the Board establish a policy that ensures that people in conflict zones, such as in Palestine, do not suffer discriminatory exclusion from the company’s financial services, or alternatively, if the company chooses not to establish this policy, provide an evaluation of the economic impact the policy of exclusion has on the affected populations as well as the company’s finances, operations and reputation.

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1 https://s201.q4cdn.com/346340278/files/doc_downloads/2022/Code-of-Business-Conduct-Ethics-2022_E xternal.pdf
2 https://www.paypal.com/webapps/mpp/country-worldwide?roistat_visit=285623
3 https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/09/paypal-brushes-off-request-from-palestinian-tech-firms-to-access-the- platform/ https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/palestinians-urge-paypal-offer-services-west-bank-gaza-2021- 10-21/
4 https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/sanctions-programs-and-country-information/c ounter-terrorism-sanctions/palestinian-authority
5 https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/palestinians-urge-paypal-offer-services-west-bank-gaza-2021- 10-21/
6 https://www.bankofpalestine.com/en/personal/transfers/swift
7 https://thisweekinpalestine.com/the-banking-sector-in-palestinen
8 https://www.mdpi.com/2227-7099/10/10/247
9 PayPal, Code of Business Conduct & Ethics (2022) p.47.

  

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