SEC Allows Apple Shareholder Vote on NDAs
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has cleared the way for Apple shareholders to vote on a proposal necessitating its board to review its use of non-disclosure agreements and other concealment clauses.
In the proposal, activist investor Nia Influence Capital said Apple’s concealment clauses do not exclude “[its] workers’ rights to talk overtly about harassment, discrimination, and other unlawful functions.” It proposed that the company’s board put together a general public report evaluating the potential hazards to Apple of acquiring concealment clauses with no these exclusion clauses.
Apple asked the SEC for a “no-action” letter indicating it would not suggest enforcement motion if the firm did not put the proposal prior to shareholders at its subsequent once-a-year common meeting in 2022.
But in accordance to Reuters, the commission has denied Apple’s request, locating that it experienced not already “substantially implemented” the fundamental problems and necessary objectives of the proposal.
“The SEC’s reaction to Apple could bode improperly for other companies,” Ars Technica said, noting that the regulator past month altered its guidelines to make it tougher for companies to attain no-motion letters under Exchange Rule 14a-eight, which needs companies to include things like shareholder proposals in proxy statements.
Apple informed the SEC in Oct that it experienced met the “substantial implementation” test, in element simply because there is no provision in its normal separation agreement that “would prohibit previous staff from speaking about harassment, discrimination, or other unlawful functions in the place of work with any one.”
However, previous Apple program engineer Cher Scarlett filed a whistleblower complaint with the SEC a week later on alleging the firm experienced built “false statements or deceptive statements” in its reaction to Nia’s proposal.
She attached a duplicate of the settlement agreement Apple offered her that involved a “statement [that] I was permitted to say about my leaving the firm remaining a own choice, somewhat than fleeing a hostile do the job atmosphere following attempting to physical exercise my rights and assistance other folks organize” under federal labor guidelines.
Nia Influence Capital has informed the SEC it has “received information and facts, confidentially supplied, that Apple has sought to use concealment clauses in the context of discrimination, harassment, and other place of work labor violation claims.”
