Guidelines for Protecting Online Shareholder Participation on Annual Meetings

Advocates of virtual-only and hybrid meetings of shareholders believe, in general: (i) that they are a participate in shareholder meetings without incurring the expense and inconvenience of traveling to the meeting site, (ii) that new technologies assure effective communication and, importantly, (iii) that virtual meetings of shareholders result in higher levels of shareholder participation. Critics of virtual-only and hybrid meetings of shareholders, on the other hand, generally assert (i) that virtual-only participation is a poor substitute for “looking the board in the eye,” (ii) that the opportunity to address corporate management and directors in person is an important shareholder right and (iii) that the current Internet communication technology is not a good replacement for a physical meeting.