Editorial Board
Welcome Shareholder Spring That Holds Bosses to Account
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Recent weeks have seen what some are calling a “shareholder spring” in the U.S. and Europe. Investors, led by institutional shareholders (traditionally a quiescent bunch), have protested pay awards for top executives at several big public companies, and in some cases have overturned them.
European Union regulators are now considering a next step: giving owners a binding vote on top pay instead of the nonbinding “say on pay” that prevails in much of the EU and in the U.S. since 2011, compliments of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. We understand why some people have reservations about a binding vote on pay, but on the whole we’re for it.