ISS Settles SEC Charges that Employee Sold Confidential Proxy Voting Results for Tickets

The SEC charged proxy adviser Institutional Shareholder Services (ISS) with failing to safeguard the confidential proxy voting information of clients participating in a number of significant proxy contests. ISS, which is registered with the SEC as an investment adviser, agreed to settle the charges by paying $300,000 and retaining an independent compliance consultant.

According to the SEC, an ISS employee provided a proxy solicitor with material, nonpublic information revealing how more than 100 ISS institutional shareholder advisory clients were voting their proxy ballots. In exchange for voting information, the proxy solicitor provided the ISS employee with meals, expensive tickets to concerts and sporting events, and an airline ticket. The breach was made possible in part because ISS lacked sufficient controls over employee access to confidential client vote information, as this employee gathered the data by logging into the ISS voting website from home or work and using his personal e-mail account to communicate details to the proxy solicitor. The employee no longer works at ISS.

According to the SEC's order instituting settled administrative proceedings, the breach occurred from approximately 2007 to 2012. ISS failed to establish or enforce written policies and procedures reasonably designed to prevent the misuse of material, nonpublic information by ISS employees. Specifically, ISS lacked sufficient controls over employee access to databases of confidential client vote information.

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Today's Wall St. Journal has an article, by Joann S. Lublin and Kirsten Grind, on For Proxy Advisers, Influence Wanes, reporting that the influence of ISS and Glass Lewis is waning, as the management of companies are increasingly reaching out to institutional investors for support on key votes and money managers are increasingly relying on their own research.  For example, both ISS and Glass Lewis recommended voting for the shareholder proposal to split the CEO and Chairman positions at JP Morgan Chase, yet it received only 32% of the vote.  The SEC settlement certainly creates additional reputational problems for ISS.