Policy Review and Comment Period

Policy Formulation and Outreach Process for the 2007 Proxy Season:
Policy Review and Comment Period

ISS Governance Services' Global Policy Board invites you to share your thoughts on ten important corporate governance issues, which represent some of our policy changes under consideration for 2008. We believe that additional market feedback on these topics will benefit our policy formulation process.

By following the links below, you will access a discussion brief outlining the key issues for each topic, as well as a number of specific questions where we are seeking your feedback. All comments will remain confidential - should ISS Governance Services make any external reference to individual comments, no potentially identifying information will be included.

Comments are requested for the following policies, covering audit, board, compensation and social issues:

Audit

• Aggressive Accounting Practices (U.S.)

Board

• Cumulative Voting (U.S.)
• Director Attendance (Japan)
• Independent Chair (U.S.)

Compensation

• Non-Employee Director Limit on Equity Plan Participation (Canada)
• Stock Options for Non-Executive Directors (Belgium and the Netherlands)
• Poor Pay Practices (U.S.)
• Stock Option Overhang in ISS Governance Services' Binomial Option Pricing ("SVT") Model (U.S.)
• Say on Pay - Principles for Evaluating Remuneration (U.S. and International)

Social

• Product Safety (U.S.)

You can also download a full package of discussion briefs and questions and e-mail your comments to policy@riskmetrics.com.

The comment period will remain open through November 8. If you have any questions, please contact James Letsky at 301.556.0438.

The final policies issued in November will be ISS Governance Services' benchmark voting guidelines for 2008. Subsequently, we will provide both a summary of the feedback we received, along with our benchmark policies, to our custom institutional clients for use as they develop their own custom voting policies for the coming year. ISS Governance Services' 2008 Summary Policy Guidelines and Online Policy Manual will be updated in December and January, respectively.

On behalf of the ISS Governance Services Global Policy Board, I would like to thank you for your participation in the policy review and comment period and for your support in our continued outreach efforts as we formulate our 2008 voting guidelines.

Martha L. Carter, Ph.D.
Chair, ISS Governance Services Global Policy Board