In a recent speech, SEC Chair Mary Jo White addressed board diversity. Chair White cited some important statistics in her remarks. She noted that minority directors on boards of the top 200 companies on the S&P 500 have stagnated at 15% for the last several years, and the percentage of these companies with at least one minority director actually declined from 90% in 2005 to 86% in 2015. Chair White also cited the GAO study (addressed in a prior post), which estimates that it would take more than 40 years for women's representation on boards to be on par with men's. The SEC Staff is preparing a recommendation to the Commission to propose amending proxy statement disclosures to require that companies include more meaningful board diversity disclosures on board members and nominees. See Chair White's full remarks here: https://www.sec.gov/news/speech/chair-white-icgn-speech.html.
Because of the generality of this update, the information provided herein may not be applicable in all situations and should not be acted upon without specific legal advice based on particular situations.
© Morrison & Foerster LLP. All rights reserved
