U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin has proposed new legislation that would reverse a final rule from the U.S. Department of Labor to limit retirement plans from voting on corporate proxies and undermine workers’ voice in the public companies where they invest. In August, Trump’s Labor Department proposed a rule to discourage ERISA plans from voting their…
Tag: ERISA
US Senate/Congressional Letter Condemning DOL/EBSA Proposal On Proxy Voting by ERISA Fiduciaries
Twenty U.S. Senators and Members of Congress, including Elizabeth Warren, Dick Durbin, Tammy Baldwin, Patty Murray, Bernie Sanders, and Sherrod Brown, and Maxine Waters have sent a very strong comment letter to EBSA/DOL criticizing the proposal on proxy voting by ERISA fiduciaries in the strongest terms. The full letter is below. An excerpt: The proposal…
DOL Quietly Joins SEC’s Shareholder Voter Suppression Effort
Here is the latest from the DOL in intentionally bureaucratic gobbledygook: This deregulatory action would modernize fiduciary practices related to the voting rights associated with ERISA plan investments and harmonize those regulations with the requirements of other regulators. The goal of this proposal would be to protect the interests of participants and beneficiaries by: (1)…
Nell Minow on ERISA, the Trump Executive Order, and ESG
VEA Vice Chair Nell Minow writes on the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation about the Labor Department’s review of ERISA fiduciaries and ESG under the Executive Order issued last month by President Trump. She wrote: ERISA, the 1974 law that governs pension funds, recognizes that the third parties who manage…
White House energy infrastructure order calls for ERISA, proxy voting review – Pensions & Investments
It will be very hard for DOL to make the case that raising ESG concerns is anything but a returns-based fiduciary calculation, but it is still extremely disappointing to see the level of corruption reach so deeply into the government. President Donald Trump ordered the Department of Labor to see whether retirement plans engaging with…