WASHINGTON — Federal securities regulators on Wednesday gave companies the authority to deny shareholders access to board-election ballots, a move that pension funds and governance advocates say could make corporations less responsive to investors’ interests.
With the lone Democrat on the Securities and Exchange Commission dissenting, the panel voted 3-1 at a public meeting on the shareholder-rights issue, which generated more than 34,000 comment letters to the agency.
“I am obviously disappointed,” the Democratic commissioner, Annette Nazareth, said before the vote.
The vacancy of a second Democratic seat on the five-member panel has added to the friction.
Democrat Roel Campos, who left in September, likely would have voted to adopt a proposal making it easier and cheaper for dissident shareholders to elect candidates they back to a company’s board.
