Paul Atkins hates you (a Shareholder Primacy crossover)
Last week, SEC Chair Paul Atkins signed his name solo to the SEC’s statement proposing rescission of rule 14a-8, a rule which allowed shareholders to file non-binding proposals with companies during the annual meeting. The concept has been around a little while. Like, English joint stock companies 17th century little while. But 90+ years of SEC case law and 400ish years of shareholder precedent isn’t really justification for Paul, who claims that shareholder proposals are not EXPLICITLY listed as a right granted shareholders by Congress. Although, neither are the more than 2,000 other administrative paragraph addendums to the Exchange Act? With no irony, Atkins also adjusted rule 14a-4, a DIFFERENT “not authorized by Congress” rule that would make it so companies could avoid “fraud” by not including the shareholder proposals. Convenient!
The media soundly ignored the rule recisison - we tag more than 10,000 stories a month across every major publication, and while there was zero coverage in the Wall Street Journal or New York Times, we did get notified it was covered by… Ukraine news and Cryptonomist?
“Unconstitutional” is just the latest in line of excuses for Atkins. Other snowflake gaslights included: “costs” associated with proposals, the government shutdown was hard, we’re too busy, there are only a few proponents anyway (and companies hate them, damn you John Cheveddan and Jim McRitchie), investors don’t need training wheels, and now unconstitutionalism. The rescission leaves investors with one thing left to do: vote against directors write a sternly worded letter. But look, someone must be winning her - so who?
According to MSCI data, from 2000 to 2026 there have been 15,425 shareholder proposals. That’s about 600 a year, targeting on average around 250 companies per year. Those are the LARGEST 250 companies on average - this is very much an S&P 500 issue. Scratch that - this is very much an OIL COMPANY issue. The top two US companies by shareholder proposals in the last 26 years are Exxon (222) and Chevron (160). Oh, wouldn’t you know, Exxon was an Atkins CLIENT at Patomak and he owned at least $50k of the stock in his brokerage account according to his financial filings.
And yes, while everyone is busy waiting for imminent AI death (and celebrating by gambling on Kalshi), Lee Zeldin and the EPA gave oil another victory and announced a repeal of rules limiting GHG emissions. Zeldin unironically once opposed dumping waste into Long Island Sound in 2015 (not in MY backyard!), but must have missed the memo that air pollution is dumping waste into the AIR. Both regulatory actions - the largest repeals in nearly 100 years for shareholders and 20 years for the environment - happened while investors are watching the Strait of Hormuz and thinking hard about blockchain fake stocks. But both can be solved with a single action:
VOTE OUT DIRECTORS. At least, while you still can.
