Is Glass Lewis Adding Proxy Solicitation to its Expanding Private “Access” Services?

That’s the allegation from our friend and frequent noisemaker Gary Lutin, following the announcement of a new service, posted to the Harvard Governance Blog by Katherine Rabin, Glass, Lewis & Co., on Sunday, March 31, 2019…just in time for Lutin’s April Fool’s Day re-post and riposte.

The new service will allow purchasers of various other services to add “Direct, Unfiltered Commentary from Issuers and Shareholder Proponents” to Glass Lewis analysis and advice on how to vote on proxy matters - and, to respond to any and all comments that may be added by other Glass Lewis clients that subscribe to the new service.

“In order to facilitate processing and distribution, there is a distribution fee associated with participation in the RFS service, and subscribers must also purchase a copy of the relevant Proxy Paper on which they wish to provide feedback” the blog-post notes.

We think that Lutin has a point: Any and all such published comments do indeed seem to be “proxy solicitation” efforts by Glass Lewis itself - efforts that are covered, we think, by SEC proxy rules and regulations. Hmmm..Let’s watch to see how this actually goes…