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Yesterday, as reported in this Bloomberg article and ISS’s Blog, Hewlett-Packard became the fourth company to fail to receive majority support for its say-on-pay, with 48% voting in favor. The company hasn’t yet filed its Form 8-K – when it does, I will add it to our list of Form 8-Ks filed by companies that fail to earn SOP majority support.

And yesterday, I blogged that Hemispherx Biopharma issued this press release announcing that it garnered 51% support for its say-on-pay ballot item. Well, a few members reviewed the company’s proxy statement and Form 8-K and concluded that the company didn’t do its math properly.

These members noted the proxy disclosure that “abstentions will have the same effect as a vote against the proposal” – but that the company didn’t follow that formula when calculating the vote for its Form 8-K. Without getting into the issue of whether the proxy disclosure is correct, it seems like the company didn’t follow the standards disclosed in its proxy statement, an important point to consider as I wrote about in the July-August 2010 issue of The Corporate Counsel (in the section entitled “How to Calculate Voting Result Percentages: Read Your Bylaws (and Compare with Your Proxy).” I do believe this problem is not just an isolated circumstance – as there still is a significant amount of confusion regarding the application of voting standards and the calculation of the vote itself.

Parsing Prudential’s 2011 Proxy Statement

Last week, I repeated Mark Borges’ analysis of General Electric’s proxy statement and all the innovative things they did. A few days ago, Prudential filed its proxy statement and it also contains quite a few innovative items (as could be expected since Peggy Foran’s arrival at the company last year), including:

– 3-page “State of the Union” letter, describing the work the board had done over the previous year on compensation and governance; note this letter is from the board, not the CEO

– Two-page summary at the beginning (pages 7-8) that includes business highlights and summary compensation information

– Highlight boxes on sustainability (pg. 24), corporate citizenship (pg. 23) and shareholder engagement (pg. 22)

The entire proxy statement is filled with color and charts and serves as a good example of an attempt to make disclosure inviting for shareholders. And don’t forget Peggy’s novel “Totes for Votes” campaign to bring in more retail votes, as she recently discussed during our “Conduct of the Annual Meeting” webcast.

Another Clawback Case: Beazer Homes

Here’s news from John Savarese and Wayne Carlin drawn from this Wachtell Lipton memo:

The SEC recently announced a settled enforcement action in which it obtained a “clawback” of prior compensation and stock sale profits from a CEO pursuant to Sarbanes-Oxley Section 304. SEC v. McCarthy, No. 1:11-CV-667-CAP (N.D. Ga. March 3, 2011). This case marks the second time the SEC has obtained this type of relief without alleging that the CEO in question personally engaged in any wrongdoing.

Section 304 requires a CEO or CFO to return incentive-based compensation to an issuer when a financial restatement occurs “as a result of misconduct. . . .” The SEC’s position is that the issuer’s “misconduct” alone is a sufficient predicate for this relief, and that it need not establish any personal misconduct by the CEO or CFO. The SEC’s position is supported by the one federal district court decision that has been rendered on this issue. SEC v. Jenkins, 718 F. Supp. 2d 1070 (D. Ariz. 2010).

The defendant in SEC v. McCarthy is the CEO of Beazer Homes USA, Inc. Beazer had previously restated its financial statements and entered into a settled cease-and-desist proceeding with the SEC, as well as a deferred prosecution agreement with the Department of Justice. The SEC also previously charged the company’s former chief accounting officer with violations of the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws, but the CEO was never charged with any misconduct in any of these proceedings.

Under the Section 304 settlement, the CEO agreed to reimburse to the company $6,479,281 (comprised of bonus payments plus certain stock sale proceeds); 40,103 restricted stock units; and 78,763 shares of restricted stock. Although the SEC has been silent concerning its general approach to calculating the amounts recoverable under Section 304, this settlement may reflect a recognition that not all proceeds from the sale of stock are appropriately reimbursable. The SEC’s complaint alleges $7.3 million in stock sale profits during the relevant period, yet the portion of the settlement attributed to stock sale proceeds is $772,232.

Finally, the SEC has never publicly articulated the criteria it applies in determining whether or not to pursue such no-fault Section 304 relief. Greater transparency about the Commission’s criteria would be in the public interest. Now that the SEC has had some initial success in establishing that it can recover substantial sums from individuals who are not accused of any wrongdoing, it would be appropriate for the SEC to provide some explanation concerning when it will seek this extraordinary form of relief.

Meanwhile, as noted in this Bloomberg article, the directors of Beazer Homes have been sued alleging that they failed to act in the best interest of shareholders when the directors approved pay raises for the company’s executives while Beazer had $34 million in losses.

– Broc Romanek