In Focus

CII Takes Netflix to Task for Ignoring Shareholder' Wishes—Again

In a recent letter to Netflix directors, CII likened the company’s cavalier behavior toward its shareholders to the distaste for democracy displayed by Frank Underwood, a lead character in Netflix’s original series House of Cards. “Underwood’s aside as he recites the oath of office that ‘democracy is so overrated’ may provide a provocative plot point in a fictional political drama, but it is a poor precept to apply to public companies,” CII Executive Director Ken Bertsch wrote in a July 5 letter to Netflix’s lead independent director and two other members of the board’s nominating and governance committee. The letter chided Netflix for failing to respond to five shareholder proposals that each received a majority of the votes cast at its June 6 annual meeting. Netflix is an outlier among large-cap companies for repeatedly disdaining majority-shareholder requests. For example, 2018 was the fifth time in six years that Netflix took no action after shareholders overwhelmingly backed proposals to adopt a majority voting standard in uncontested director elections and to replace supermajority voting provisions in the company’s charter and bylaws with a simple majority standard.

Podcast: What Investors Need to Know about CFIUS

In this new podcast, Clay Lowery, a managing director at Rock Creek Global Advisors and former assistant secretary for international affairs at the Treasury Department, talks with CII’s Brandon Whitehill about CFIUS, the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. CFIUS is a regulatory body charged with reviewing M&A deals that result in foreign control of U.S. companies and assets. The podcast discusses CFIUS’s authority to scrutinize, alter, or altogether block, M&A deals. It also explores the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA), which would strengthen the committee and have broad implications for many transactions, including cross-border investments, joint ventures, venture capital and hedge funds.