On November 2, 2022 the Securities and Exchange Commission finalized the first of its market data rule proposals. The amendments to form N-PX bring greater detail, consistency, and usability to the proxy voting information reported by mutual funds. These changes came in response to investors, who have said for nearly twenty years that they would benefit from more readily usable information and more details. But, new disclosures about proxy voting versus securities lending may have funds and their lending agents reexamining their policies and priorities. 

The U.S. Labor Department (DOL) has proposed regulations that would greatly expand how retirement and pension plans can invest in ESG strategies and clarify the scope of ERISA plans' responsibility for proxy voting.  If adopted, the DOL's proposal, drafted by the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA), will reverse the former administration's regulations on ESG factors in retirement portfolios and ERISA fiduciaries' use of proxy voting powers in favor of social or political goals. 

On Friday, December 11, the Department of Labor (DOL) issued its final rules on proxy voting by ERISA fiduciaries. As proposed last August 30, the draft rules drew hundreds of responses by the ESG-directed investing community, many of which criticized as unworkable the DOL proposal. The final version of the rules eliminates the need for plan sponsors to weigh the economic vs. non-economic effects before casting their proxy votes. Yet that softer, principles-based approach may itself create compliance problems for ERISA fiduciaries -- and may not even survive the first hundred days of the Biden administration.