From Wall Street Walk to Wall Street Talk: The Changing Face of Corporate Governance

The first part of this article will focus on ERISA's fiduciary rules as they relate to the voting of proxies held by pension plans and the Department of Labor's position on proxy voting, as enunciated in advisory opinions and Interpretive Bulletin 94-2. The second section will describe recent trends in institutional proxy voting as exhibited during the 1998 proxy season. The third section will describe the Securities and Exchange Commission's recent amendments to the Rules on Shareholder Proposals which became effective in June 1998. The final section will discuss the proliferation of national and international Corporate Governance Standards by pension funds and other institutional investors.